


The Mysterious and Mildly Merry Travels of Mister Joey Wheeler

by Alkyone Daze (VampChocKami)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, BL, Boy's Love, But also, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Genderbending, M/M, Most of the time, Multi, Multishipping, Parallel Universes, Violetshipping, all the ones I could remember, also some genre change, expect some confusion, here and there, in the purest sense, just like all the characters dude, lots of things change all the time okay, might go zero to a hunned real quick, mostly on the side tho, not sure how else to tag this, puppyshipping - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-19 00:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 70,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22002100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampChocKami/pseuds/Alkyone%20Daze
Summary: Today Joey Wheeler wakes up to the sound of his little sister giggling and the smell of pancakes made by his mom. A far cry from his dorm mate’s early morning rock music and warmed over fast food. Before he can get his bearings he’s thrown into another experience.Another world.Another him.Soon, the only things Joey can figure are:1.	He’s alone with himself2.	And sometimes with Seto Kaiba3.	And though he might forget himself4.	He’ll never forget his Seto Kaiba
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler & Kaiba Seto, Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	1. O' Christmas Joey

**Author's Note:**

> Posting a little late for Christmas but it won't be a Christmas story for long so, that's okay.
> 
> I've been writing this for literal years (^_^")> But there is always room for error :P  
> So please tell me if you find anything that you think could be improved. But also anything you liked, anything you didn't like, any thoughts you have.  
> All are welcome! *throws confetti*
> 
> This will update regularly, once a week, and it's all already written so you don't have to worry about that promise falling through (^_<)
> 
> Otherwise, I hope you enjoy~

“Joey… Jooooooooeeeeeeeeeey… JoeyJoeyJoeyJoeyJoeyJoeyJoey…”

He felt the last traces of his sleep quickly fade due to irritation and slowly blinked his eyes open to an energetic, long-limbed ray of autumn sunshine.

“A’right, ‘m up, ‘m _up_ , jeez.” He murmured at his giggling sister while she bounced ceaselessly on his bed like a child. The way she used to when they were kids on Christmas. He smiled as her sudden quiet allowed him to doze again. He absently wondered why Serenity was in his college dorm room in her pyjamas anyway. He could have sworn she was in her final year of high school living with their moth-

His eyes flew wide open and were mercilessly attacked by his sister’s sweet smile. The light laugh of a girl barely in her teens assaulted his ears and his head battled with the confusion of the situation. Serenity simply smiled at his sudden awakening and began to tug at his arms, dragging him out of his mess of sheets.

“I knew you’d wake up when you realised what day it was. C’mon _c’mon_ , they’re waiting for us!”

Her eyesight was bad, but experience seemed to dictate that she skilfully dodge the door frame and soundly pull him after her. Now that he had accepted his sister’s presence (couldn’t very well write her off as a ghost or hallucination _now_ could he?) he had time to realise that he was most definitely _not_ in his dorm room. He glanced around and very quickly concluded that he’d never seen the house they were currently barrelling through in his life.

He brushed against pure white walls, and nearly tripped down the wooden staircase opposite the upstairs bathroom when it turned suddenly to the left halfway down. When she’d safely jumped the last step his sister immediately turned again, leaving him to deal with the final step and the banister altogether. He won the battle without a hit to his groin; sadly, he thought his arm would never again be back in its socket. He was doomed to live a life as that one guy whose left arm was unnaturally longer than his right.

He pretended to sob on his knees, left arm limply in her grip, and asked Serenity why she was torturing him. She answered with, “Ugh, don’t be such a cry-baby, there’re choc chip pancakes Jo. _Choc chip_!” she squealed as he began to smell it.

And once he did he marvelled at how he’d missed the heavenly scent. They were indeed chocolate chip pancakes, freshly made, and it reminded him of his mother and Christmas mornings again.

He didn’t have a spare moment to reminisce, however, because that same second the pair of siblings burst through the door and into the spacious kitchen/living room and Joey’s gaze caught on what was definitely the sight of his mother cooking and his father watching her with that loving gaze he’d had when Joey was six.

He didn’t know whether his heartbeat was speeding up or ceasing altogether because this was either a dream or he was probably dead.

His mom looked up and didn’t seem any different from when he’d seen her for Serenity’s operation. She had that same curly brown hair and the eyes she’d given to Joey’s little sister. She was just as tall too and there were the same wrinkles on her face. But her placement was extremely off. She didn’t belong in a kitchen in the same house as he and his drunkard father. His drunkard father didn’t belong on that chair behind the kitchen counter, staring at her. This was too strange for him to take in.

But then-

“Morning Jo,” his mother welcomed him with a smile, “Serenity brought you down just in time,” she kissed the giggling girl on the forehead, “Pancakes are on the table.”

And everything felt right all of a sudden.

His father huffed and ushered his children to the table before sitting down himself and calling his wife over as she untied her apron and shuffled toward her family with a grin as big as her daughter’s and eyes as bright as her husband’s.

In minutes they were eating and talking and joking and laughing. It really was Christmas morning. Joey easily assimilated and got over the shock. Maybe _this_ was reality and he’d just been having a really long dream. Maybe he’d always seen his mother laughing, had never flinched from his father’s touch, had always had Serenity to hug and play with nearby.

Maybe they’d always been together.

He shook himself from that delusion fairly quickly. For some reason he could very obviously sense that this was both real and not real. Like there was two of him. The Joey who’d lost his family sixteen years ago and the Joey who’d always had and always would have them. It was a little odd being jealous of himself; he left his last pancake uneaten.

“Pre–sents, pre–sents, pre–sents.” Serenity chanted and he naturally joined in until his father was covering his mouth with his hand and his mother doing the same to his sister. The adults sighed simultaneously and laughed.

“Okay, okay, if you want to so bad.”

“Go, _go_.” They shooed the teens toward the magnificent tree and shiny boxes beneath it.

Giggling together the brother and sister duo fought fiercely over each other to get to the first of their presents. Serenity won, as Joey second handedly recalled she always did, and tore into her prize like a wild dog into meat. Joey curiously glanced over at her gift and watched Christmas-themed wrapping paper turn into a landscape painting and his sister’s bad eyes widen and her entire body glow with how much she loved it. When she jumped up to give the gift-giver a hug their mother was already standing with her arms wide.

With an appreciative squeal Serenity stepped into her mother’s embrace and Joey looked back down at his present, noting the card telling him it was from his father. There was a vague sense of apprehension from the Joey who hadn’t gotten a Christmas present in years but the Joey of the current reality could guess the gift and was already smiling.

He decided to make a presentation of it, however, and ripped off the wrapping paper as wildly as his sister, being careful not to scratch his treasure, and there, with a few shiny stickers placed here and there on its cover, was the deluxe edition of the newest fighter game in stores. Joey summoned tears to his eyes, set his sights on his unsuspecting dad and lunged toward the older man with heartfelt cries of love and thanks. All he got for his theatrics was a, “Coffee, Joey! _Coffee_!” before a pout and his yet-to-dry eyes earned him a hair-ruffle and grin.

“Glad you like it, kid. Now open your others with a _little_ less enthusiasm, yeah?” Joey laughed and bounded back to their Christmas tree with just as much enthusiasm and the pair tore into their gifts like a two-part pack of wild coyotes.

When they had had their fill their mother called for “Christmas movie time!” and they all crowded onto their couch. Mother and father sitting side by side, the winner of the Battle of the Last Cushion (Joey) in the last seat and the loser on that sibling’s lap. It’s easy to see why Joey always won this one. What twelve-year-old could survive a sixteen year old boy crushing her with their manly weight for a prolonged period of time?

And so they spent Christmas afternoon. They talked over the movie, shushed each other at the really funny parts, laughed together at the really sappy parts and cried at the touching parts (the Wheeler men settled for exchanging awkward glances and polite silence). At the end of a particularly funny Christmas-themed movie that had tears in all the Wheelers’ eyes, mother Wheeler glanced at her watch and exclaimed that their friends would be there soon and she hadn’t even started cooking.

She forcefully shooed the siblings upstairs and her husband to their bedroom before getting behind the stove and putting on her war-face.

“You wash first Ren! I want your help in the kitchen!”

“ _Fine_.” Serenity grumbled a bit on her march to her room. Joey followed behind a little slower and felt a strange pang at not being the one cooking. His current reality’s self frowned at the unusual urge and trudged to his room indifferently. He dug around the mountains of messiness there and found his phone beneath a pair of jeans just as it vibrated.

He read the messages in the group chat and added his two cents while he was there. He whiled away his sister’s shower talking to his friends and didn’t stop smiling throughout the exchanges. Joey easily got the feeling that he was really happy in this realm. He guessed he’d never been in the ‘wrong crowd’ in this perfect world and wondered if that had affected his meeting with Tristan. Plus, he hadn’t seen Marik on his list of contacts. Not that he had the Egyptian tomb-keeper as a contact in his home reality; he just wondered how much of what happened to him had also happened to this Joey.

“Bathroom’s yours Jo!” his sister’s voice interrupted his train of thought and had him scrambling to find clothes and jump in the shower. Yugi had just sent him a message saying they were about to leave; which, if he considered how long Atem took to style his hair, would mean they’d be there in an hour and he wanted to make sleeping room for those who would stay over before anyone got there.

Joey scurried to the bathroom and quickly undressed. He couldn’t help glancing over this version of himself. Joey made his body pause and noticed he’d grown since sixteen. At this age he still seemed lanky and awkward and without his gang influence he hadn’t firmed up as much and was a tad scrawny. He played baseball though, Joey of the Perfect World replied somehow and Joey of the Unfortunate Background retaliated with, _well I punched a guy’s teeth in_.

This seemed to shut the teenage Joey up and halt their mutual self-discovery until he’d rinsed the soap suds off his skin. When Joey stepped out of the steam and wiped the fog from the mirror he was startled at how long his hair was and the straightness of his nose.

He may have been good but even Joey Wheeler took a couple hits to the face in his gang days, enough that his nose slanted ever so slightly to the left. He finished marvelling at himself and got dressed, journeying back to his room to raze the mountains of clothing and evict the various insects from their homes. He did what he could in forty minutes and when the doorbell rang he abandoned his task and bounced down the stairs to answer the door with a huge smile that the three bundled up males outside his house returned with faces stiff from cold.

“Hey there Yug’, Atem, Mr Muto.” He greeted, speaking each one’s name as they entered and shutting the door behind them. The Muto family made themselves at home. The distant shout of, “Yay, Christmas movies!” had just widened his smile when another ring at his doorbell turned him around and into the gracious host once more.

“Oh hey Téa, Mr Gardner, Mrs Gardner.” He repeated his routine as Téa, her father and her grandmother traipsed in and hung up their coats. This time he followed the group into the living room where three men with outrageous hairstyles, two of them with multi-coloured hair, sat and watched cheesy old Christmas movies. The new triad settled themselves around the room and joined in the budding conversation. Joey added comments here and there to the two brothers’ exchanges and they were laughing at a wry joke from Atem when the doorbell rang again. This time Serenity opened for the guests.

His heart jumped and he grinned super widely when he heard Serenity say, “Hiya Tristan, good evening Mr and Mrs Taylor. Oh! You too Duke.” The company crowded the living room and the new appearances greeted.

“Heya Tris’. What’s up Duke, no ‘rents?”

Duke took the arm of the chair beside the couch and Tristan took the armchair itself.

“Nah, they were too upset at not being the ones to throw the party. ‘Sides, don’t think you’d want to go to a party with them anyway.”

“They know they don’t have to do anything fancy right?” Serenity commented as she laid a platter of snacks on the coffee table in the centre of the living room. “It’s just friends, really. And everyone only comes here because it’s more central than your place.” She framed a rough circle with her hands. “You should call them, they’re missing out on a good time.”

“Too late,” Duke rebuffed, “They went to some place in Africa for the holiday.”

“You didn’t go with?” Téa interjected and Duke shook his head, his bright green eyes hidden behind his eyelids.

“Too hot. Christmas should be cold,” he whined.

They were interrupted by the doorbell once again and Joey wondered who it could be, everyone was already there. Well, except for Ryou but he had gone home for the holiday.

Joey and Serenity went to answer the door together but were a little late on hellos. Serenity, because she had never seen the tall, handsome and intimidating boy next to the twelve-year-old who attended her school and Joey, because the last person he expected on his doorstep on Christmas day would be Seto Kaiba.

After the outsiders’ uncertain, simultaneous greeting Joey quickly issued a heated demand to know why the taller boy was there. He received a scowl and an insistence that the boy was leaving, he was just dropping off Mokuba, who immediately jerked his head toward his brother and pouted.

“But we always spend Christmas together, big brother, you promised you’d try to be nice.” Seto seemed to be struggling between his pride and his dedication to his brother. Joey almost laughed after a minute of this and decided to put his enemy out of his misery. He turned and began walking back toward the living room.

“Try not to get first-class snob all over the floor, it’s a pain to clean up.” He threw over his shoulder and got a warm, fuzzy feeling perfect for the season at the helpless glare the usually powerful boy sent his way.

“Guess who,” he introduced Kaiba as he slipped back onto his couch arm.

“No need.” Duke interjected.

“We could hear the lightning crackling from here.” Tristan added.

The brothers entered, one with sparkling eyes and the other with awkward tension that was quickly masked with an air more frigid than the cold wind outside. Seto took a wallflower seat at the dining table with a few parents.

Joey’s mother entered the room with a waft of final dinner preparations and a hurried atmosphere. She plopped down on a dining room chair and Tristan’s mom and Téa’s grandmother followed suit and sat beside her. Soon the adults had converged and Seto was forced to move or socialise with forty-year-olds. He migrated to an emptied arm chair and gave off an aura that said, “Keep out.”

Most of the boys shrugged and resumed conversing but Atem and Yugi attempted to talk to Seto with surprising success while Mokuba and Serenity sat cross-legged on the floor and traded gossip. The Kaiba brothers integrated alarmingly well into the family and both Joeys worried at it. In all too short an amount of time, dinner was over and the kids sent upstairs so all the adults could have some wine and chat.

The group of teens pressed themselves into Joey’s room, he could just tell the stuck-up Kaiba was glancing around with disgust on his stuck-up face, but when he looked back to check his suspicions the elder Kaiba was stepping around various clothing piles with a small smile dancing around his mouth and Joey’s face turned into a question mark. To his surprise, the younger Kaiba was the one who remarked.

“Jeez Joey, your room’s a real pigsty.” And Mokuba turned up his nose in an exact imitation of his brother but somehow made it a lot cuter. Still offended, Joey scowled but was saved from retaliating by an unlikely source.

“Don’t be a hypocrite Mokuba, your room looks exactly the same.” Seto jabbed with rolling eyes as Mokuba crossed his arms.

“Nuh uh,” he said with attitude, “I have Galaxy Street Fighter Two in between piles.” He held out his hand to emphasise which street fighter he had and everyone laughed. Joey recognised that name and stared around his room, trying to find the video game.

“You mean that?” Seto pointed and Mokuba's eyes widened. He immediately scrambled toward the game and picked it up.

“No, not this,” Mokuba opposed, “this is the _deluxe_ edition! How many controllers do you have? Can we play? Can we play?” Mokuba begged Joey and easily won the older boy over.

“I have two controllers, three if you count my old one.” He glanced around at what was still a mess and his mouth twitched as he came up with a plan. “Tell you what, Mokes,” he leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. “You clear up a bit and you’ll find the missing controller around here, and then three people can play.”

Mokuba nodded and immediately began to clear up, occasionally asking where certain things went and urging Serenity to help. Ignoring her insightful, “He’s only telling you that to get you to clean his room; he probably knows exactly where it is…”

It wasn’t long before the older kids were ushered out of the room and forced to watch from the doorway as the Younger Sibling Cleaning Service got to work. Joey put his hand beneath his chin and looked pleased with himself. He was startled out of his self-satisfaction by a voice.

“If only it was that easy to get him to clean his own room.”

He glanced at the seemingly comfortable Seto Kaiba and considered him for a minute. Assessment complete, he turned back to the cleaning duo and stayed quiet a while.

“With younger sibs you’ve just gotta know how to manipulate them. A kid like Mokuba's dangerous. He’s so cute you could get wrapped around his little finger.” Here he glanced at the taller boy out of the corner of his eye and snickered. “Though it’s a little late for you.”

The taller boy’s customary disdain was back but it had a somehow lighter air to it, almost playful.

“Are you implying that I am whipped, Mr Wheeler?”

“Oh no, I’m downright telling you, Mr Kaiba.” Joey grinned up at Seto while Seto smirked from on high.

“Well, I’d like to see you refuse your adorable little sister something.”

Joey chuckled menacingly. “Oh hohoho, wanna bet, Kaiba?”

“What are your terms?”

“Loser sleeps next to the winner tonight.” Duke offers.The pair almost agreed but then simultaneously realised that, though it would then suck to lose, it would also suck to win.

“Idiot!” Joey spluttered. “That’s a lose-lose situation!”

“I’m not even staying the night,” Seto rolled his eyes.

Duke laughed at them for almost falling for it. “Well, it was worth a try.” He said between chuckles. By now the entire group were curiously listening in.

“What’s happening?” Yugi asked, “Why are Joey and Kaiba staring each other down this time?”

“It’s a bet,” Tristan took the mantle of explaining as Duke recovered from his laughing fit.

“We need terms.” Joey continued. They all thought for a while before Téa came up with something.

“It’s actually pretty simple really. Why doesn’t the loser be nice to the winner, no matter what, for the first week of school?” there was a single moment of glancing at her and pondering her condition before it was widely agreed upon and the two opponents shook on it.

A few minutes of challenging glaring ensued, mostly on Joey’s part before they were permitted on the battle ground that was Joey’s, now spic and span, bed room. The smaller siblings were sat down and their roles explained. There would be three rounds, in each round the younger sibling would ask the older for something. The first to fold would lose the round and the loser would have to kiss the winner’s ass for the first week of school.

Western show-down music played and the two boys fiercely glared at each other for some seconds before Duke paused the song and signalled for them to begin their duel. From beside Duke Tristan marvelled at how many songs for different scenarios were on the playlist. Duke agreed and pointed out Justin Timberlake’s _Sexy Back_. “That one’s my theme song.” Tristan sweat-dropped.

Mokuba began strong with an initial pleading look, consistent eye-contact and a simple request for something to drink. Serenity went with a simple but precise over-the-shoulder plead with a sweet hair-swish and a purposely young voice. It was Seto’s almost immediate loss with Joey holding out for much longer.

When Seto returned with the glass of brightly coloured fizzy drink he, in what was dubbed a last minute penalty, made several trips to accommodate the rest of the gang’s thirst. He would have made more if Atem and Yugi hadn’t felt sorry for him and helped him with the last trip as he was forbidden from carrying a tray.

The games soon continued, the next item being a piggy back ride. Serenity’s heart seemed to really be in this one as Joey folded first. The score was one-one with the tie-breaker on the horizon. This was going to be a tough one. They needed a tough request along with heavy younger sibling charm. Duke and Tristan took on narrating the battle as if it were a wrestling match and Téa and Yugi took great pleasure in being referees. Finally, the time came for the final request.

“Can… we stay the night?”

“Can Mokuba and Seto sleep over?”

“Their first thought is an obvious ‘no’ in both corners.” Duke announced in a hushed voice to draw tension.

“Contestants and viewers are reminded that one of the conditions agreed upon during intermission is that you are not allowed to outright refuse. If you _do_ refuse you forfeit the round and are required to perform the request anyway.” Tristan added. Everyone’s eyes bounced between the pair of older brothers as they both almost give in to the temptation to say ‘no’ immediately. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when neither of them did it.

“The first difficult stage has passed with neither giving into the ‘no’ temptation but how long can these doting older brothers hold out against their younger siblings’ charm?” Duke followed up.

A sniffle was heard and there was a collective gasp. Seto shook his head, silently begging Mokuba not to.

“Ooh and Mokuba pulls the crying card!” Tristan begins an up-tempo and volume announcement. “What will the elder Kaiba do?” he nearly yells.

A second sniffle tacked on to the tension and Duke jumped on it.

“Ohh and Serenity follows suit! Both siblings are putting their all into this question! It all comes down to the softer brother!”

“Whose heart will melt first?” Tristan agitatedly asked.

“Fine.”

There was a shocked silence.

“And the winner-,”

“-is…”

“… Joey Wheeler!”

“Congratulations!” Tristan aimed at the cheering Joey, “How does it feel to be, officially, colder than _the_ Seto Kaiba?”

“Surprisingly good considering he’s kissing my ass for a week.” Joey replied, all smiles. Seto looked at the floor, dejected. It seemed to take a full minute before the pair realised but Atem took it upon himself to let them know what they’d done.

“So, Seto, you're sleeping over. Yugi and I share the guest bed and Duke takes the air mattress in there while Tristan takes the air mattress in here, Téa sleeps in Serenity’s room, and an air mattress can’t fit two with the way Duke sleeps so you and Mokuba will have to pick between Joey and Tristan.”

The pair stared with horrified eyes at the boy whose smirk was slowly slipping into evil laughter. Soon the entire room was laughing at them and the boys themselves were either cracking a smile or chuckling. When the ruckus died down Mokuba grabbed the brand new game again.

“Now let’s play that video game, shall we?” Duke offered as he plucked the box out of Mokuba’s hands, put the game in the play station and fiddled with Joey’s TV until the game’s music blared through the speakers.

After his third round of play Joey retreated to his bed, claiming fatigue, and turned to the boy reclining beside him with tired curiosity.

“Decide where you're going to sleep?”

Seto glanced down at him without moving his head.

“I think I may dislike Taylor more than I do you.”

Joey chortled quietly and began to doze.

“Joe- Wheeler-,”

“Y’ c’n call me Joey, Kaib’.” Joey murmured sleepily. Kaiba's eyelashes flickered somewhat alarmedly but he quickly recovered.

“Then it’s only fair that you do the same for me.” Seto watched Joey’s face stretch into a languid smile.

“M’kay Joey.” The boy laughed drowsily.

“You know what I mean, mutt.”

“Yeah yeah Set’. Now whad’ya want ta say?”

He looked a bit awkward at the first name basis they’d established but Seto recalled his question and poked Joey to find out if the teen was awake. When he got an affirmative murmur he spoke again.

“You were going to turn me away, earlier, at your door.” He said. When nothing was said for a while Joey figured he should make a sound and grunted.

“So why did you end up letting me in?”

Laughter and the repetitive thwacking of digital people hitting other digital people filled the gap in their conversation as Seto waited.

“You were gonna leave Mokuba alone here,” Joey seemed to have woken himself up somewhat for this, becoming more coherent. “Christmas _is_ real fun with friends. It’s an almost perfect replacement for family. But ‘almost’ should never be enough for a kid.”

There was a short pause as Joey seemed to begin to sink into sleep again.

“Those were my _firs’_ thoughts. But I s’pose also… you woulda been alone… on Christmas. An’ trus’ me tha’s the wors’ way ta spend it.”

Seto frowned at the blond’s smooth face and wondered where the shorter had gotten _that_ advice from. As far as he knew Joey always spent Christmas with his family. Ever since he was a child.

It took a few more moments of explosions, a sudden outbreak of parody songs and a quick argument over whose turn it was to play before Joey said his final words for the day.

“We should do this ‘gain some time. All o’ us. This’s the best Christmas ever.”

**_“Joey…”_ **

**_“Joey?”_ **

**_“Joey…”_ **

The voice scraped his ears like rock against rock. He shivered and covered his head muttering’ “No, no, no _, no, no_ …”

**_“Joey…”_ **

**_“Joey…”_ **

****


	2. Do You Know the Money Man?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you love surprise requests to dog-sit for the weekend?
> 
> Normally I do (because I effing love my cousin's good bois). But, this time ended up getting in the way of me posting on time and I'm so sorry for that (T_T), seeing as I literally said, last week, that I would not be late with updates.
> 
> Please do the forgives for me and, hopefully, enjoy the promised chapter, one teeny day late. ~(^o^)~

“…ler… Wheeler…” Joey felt himself drifting closer to the realm of wakefulness. The heavy waters of sleep began to slosh off him in waves. Strange, he could have sworn he’d asked Seto to call him Joey last night. Well, he mentally shrugged; old habits die hard he guessed.

“Mr Wheeler!” Joey’s eyes opened when his face smacked the ground.

A cold marble floor was underneath his twisted and trailing bed sheets. Weird, he remembered the floor in his new bedroom being wooden but the ice-cold stone beneath his reddening cheek told a different story. Familiar expensive shoes stepped into view and he skittered his eyes up but could only see where the well-dressed man’s white trousers met his pale blue shirt. Moving his eyes were difficult anyway; they felt swollen for some reason.

“I know this may be a difficult time for you Mr Wheeler, sir, but you don’t have the leisure of rolling about and wallowing in your sorrows. You run a multi-million dollar company with branches all over the world. A tree like that needs a full-time gardener.” Seto Kaiba untangled his boss from the clutches of his silk bed sheets, being careful not to disturb the stern spectacles over his own nose and glancing at the cold floor when he heard the clatter of something falling.

Hefting the large man much like one would a child, Seto bent to the side to pick up the expensive slab of technology and examine it for cracks. “You slept with your cell phone next to you.” He noted and Joey felt his body, which had been largely sloth-like, immobile and accepting of Seto’s touch, now scramble and fight to grab the little glowing rectangle.

“Has she called?” his voice was gruffer than usual and cracked in more places than necessary with that simple question. Seto, apparently used to this behaviour but still unbalanced by his frantic movements, stretched the phone an arm’s length away and put Joey down. Using his height as an advantage to win the battle of who got the cell phone, Seto fiddled one-handed with the object and as its screen went dark he slipped it into his back pocket and stared down the still-grasping blonde.

“Give it to me.” Joey desperately commanded. “That’s an order Seto!”

The other’s expression didn’t shift.

“I am your secretary, _not_ your servant, Mister Wheeler and I believe the last time this happened you made me sign a contract that would forbid me to let you get as out of hand as that time and I believe _that_ catastrophe began with a cell phone as well. We lost thousands when Vivian left.”

Joey felt a pang in his heart of renewed betrayal. He, quite suddenly, remembered Vivian. Her wicked humour, thigh-high-slit dresses, her lovely face and smooth legs, the way she laughed and the way she gasped but the memories were quickly overpowered by the image of a different woman and this he ran away from. He remembered how he was after Vivian and knew full-well that Seto’s job was to protect the company from that happening again.

“Have you repented?”

He nodded numbly.

“Good, because, despite the arrangements I made in preparation for this day, we are already late.” Seto sharply turned on his heel and approached the double doors that led out of Joey’s new bedroom. “Food’s on the coffee table, suit’s on the side of the bed you managed to not mess up. You have ten minutes. The board meeting is at nine thirty.”

Joey automatically glanced around for a clock but couldn’t find any, not even an analogue one.

“Ah ah ah,” Seto the secretary tutted. “You should know by now that _I’m_ your timepiece. Just listen to me and it will be as it was before Mai, before even Vivian. You’ll be fine.” He assured as he left the room.

The grieving Joey stared at the doors a while before the Joey of Dimensional Travel poked at him to get moving; he was starving. However, there was a slight argument at the coffee table. One Joey raring to scarf down what looked like the type of gourmet feast he hadn’t seen once during his college life and the other heartbroken and dead-eyed, claiming he wasn’t hungry.

_Bullcrap!_ Joey thought. He could sense that their body was thoroughly famished.

“Would you like me to spoon-feed you?” a venomous voice offered sweetly. The blond felt his heart leap into his throat and began snatching food and wolfing it down with a nervous, “No! No, we’re fine!”

Seto’s face twisted in confusion as the Joeys realised their mistake. “I’m really okay Seto, thanks for taking care of me, I’ll just get ready for the board meeting now, okay, bye.” He shoved their suspicious secretary back out of the door and leaped back to eating breakfast before the Schedule Dragon could breathe flames down his neck again. Joey of the Broken Heart spent a moment puzzling himself over why he’d said ‘we’ but quickly dismissed those thoughts in favour of feeding the black hole he’d accepted was in his stomach.

He fiddled with the forest green tie he’d pulled on and scowled when it didn’t look quite right. He could remember both Vivian and Mai tweaking it for him with increasing reluctance until they just stayed in bed and watched him get ready, asking him to stay a little longer.

Joey sighed and gave up. He always regretted having to say no to them. He glanced up at messy blonde strands and mused that in the fifteen years since he’d left teenagerdom his hair hadn’t seemed to change much.

Another person entered the view of the mirror and beckoned him to turn around. Joey sighed. Seto always took control of his grooming during the interim. He didn’t like it. It felt like still getting dressed by his mother.

His mother…

Just yesterday it had been Christmas. He’d gotten a top-of-the-range fighter game, his father had ruffled his hair and smiled, his mother had walked around the house like she’d never left and Serenity had dragged him down stairs that he hadn’t seen before that day like it was tradition. As Seto’s hand moved to his hair, brushing it this way and that, he thought of his family and how much he suddenly missed them.

“Hey, Seto?” he began tentatively.

“Yes, sir?” the taller man replied absently, dissatisfied with Joey’s unwieldy locks.

“How’s my sister doing?” he hoped the question didn’t sound suspicious or strange. But he _was_ Joey, right? He’d dote on his little sis no matter the world. Seto’s face didn’t flinch so Joey figured he might ask this question a fair amount of times.

“Still blowing the tuition money you’ve been giving her.” Joey blinked in shock. Seto’s voice was unemotional but his words were phrased in a way that suggested the two of them only spoke the worst of her. “I’ve been informed that she has switched majors again and obtained a new piercing.”

_A **new** piercing?_

He felt sick to the pit of his stomach when he thought of his sister covered in metal ornaments.

“Her lifestyle is frivolous to put it politely. It’s probably due to that doting mother of yours, it’s likely she gave the little brat everything she asked for and the girl’s continuing the tradition of wasting family blessings on pleasure activities.”

Joey felt rage surge throughout his entire being but it seemed to be insulated by his thirty-year-old body as he felt himself smile wryly.

“Still stung by the break up?” he asked and Seto scoffed.

“Hardly. Mokuba deserves better.”

Thirty-year-old Joey chuckled and nodded vaguely causing Seto to click his tongue, hold the shorter man’s face still and fix the damage caused by the nod.

“You're not going to comment, sir?” Joey startled slightly but felt his mouth move with the influence of both the current reality him and the dimension travelling him.

“If that’s how she wants to live and it makes her happy then I want to let her but I don’t have the time to deal with her problems at the moment.”

“That’s the spirit, sir,” Seto encouraged with a final flick of Joey’s hair, “This company needs your precious time, you can’t waste it on twenty-something year olds in the prime of their lives.” Joey automatically followed Seto’s long stride out the door of his bedroom and through, what looked like, the interior of a mansion. His mansion.

They wove a worn path through corridors and past contemporary paintings that he didn’t really like now that he took a good look at them. He shuddered at a particular depiction of a woman being shared by demons and jogged a little to walk side by side with Seto.

“I, uh, also wanted to ask about my father…”

The brunet sighed and put a few fingertips to his temple as if to reach inside and pull the headache out.

“You _know_ how much of a time management disaster it was arranging for you to go to his funeral, now you want to visit his _grave_? Hrmph. Well, if you're serious, I can pencil it in for Friday at the earliest…” Seto began muttering as he pulled an electronic device that barely fit in his grip into sight and scrolled through it with a little pen.

“… his… funeral…?” Joey murmured.

His dad was dead?

His sister was a delinquent… He already felt the noose of time tighten around his neck. This was a complete contrast to yesterday’s reality.

He’d just broken up with the second of the two women he’d ever felt he loved, his sister was blowing his hand-outs on piercings and parties, the man he’d spent his childhood both loving and hating was abruptly gone and he both had and hadn’t been there to witness it. He couldn’t describe how he felt about that. It was strange to say the least; feeling you’ve missed the funeral of someone you care about and simultaneously feeling that you paid for and attended it as well. Like two great pains meshed into one.

He swallowed and numbly continued walking. At this point he was afraid to ask further about his mother. With the way this interrogation was going Seto would probably tell him that she was in a mental asylum or the hospital with a terminal disease.

With this fear in mind Joey absently slid into his expensive car, distantly noting that Seto was his driver as well and gave in to what he always seemed to do in this reality. Simply exist.

The board meeting was as boring as he’d thought it would be and he yawned throughout the corridors where Seto was leading him to his office. He felt his right arm lightly tugged and just avoided bumping into a potted plant. That same hand acted as a stopper before he bumped into the wall and Seto’s right eyebrow seemed to twitch.

“Could you _walk_ in a _straight line_ please?” he hissed. “This isn’t the stumbling lurch to the next bar at midnight, okay?”

Joey chuckled tiredly. For some reason he felt really fatigued, but he’d shaken it off by the time they’d entered his office. He took slow steps, in complete awe at how beautiful it was.

The room had three walls of windows and a perfect view of the city below the towering building. The room itself was sparsely but tastefully decorated and Joey’s wonder showed plainly on his face. He couldn’t believe that it was all his. It abruptly hit him that he was, doubtless, rich. He had a corporation to himself, _the_ Seto Kaiba was _his_ secretary and in ten years he’d built up a company this large.

At this realisation intense pride welled up inside him and he couldn’t help thinking that time was a necessary sacrifice for this measure of success. No wonder Kaiba was such a cold bastard. You didn’t have the time for niceties when you had a company to run.

“You’re acting a bit strangely today Mr Wheeler.” Seto pointed out and Joey jerked out of his reverie of self-praise.

“Uh, ah, r-really? I hadn’t noticed.” Joey stuttered apprehensively while the taller approached him and gently laid a hand on his back, leading him to the imposing leather chair behind the desk on the far end of the room.

“Well, I have. If you are not back to normal by tomorrow I am having you investigated, sir.”

“O-oh, is that so? Are you normally allowed to say stuff like that to your boss?” Joey inquired nervously from his forced seating. Seto smiled a small, scary smile.

“I _am_ a special employee sir.”

He then left the office and Joey with instructions on what he was to be doing for the remainder of the morning and Joey stared at the pile of papers in front of him with dread for a minute before steeling himself and digging into the boredom.

Once he’d thoroughly sunk his teeth into the humdrum of paperwork he could barely register the renewal of Seto’s presence even when the cold brunet said, “Lunch time.”

“Whaz hap’?” was his completely coherent and intelligible answer to the announcement. He could have sworn Seto snickered but when he blinked clear vision into his foggy brown eyes the man had the same poker face he ceaselessly wore with those strict frames. It always felt a bit weird to see Seto with glasses to Joey of the Reality Hopping.

It took a few more seconds and childish rubbing of his eyes before he was cognizant enough to enquire as to where exactly this fabled ‘lunch’ was. Seto did chuckle at that and said that they were going out for lunch, presenting the idea that without direct sunlight and a couple of trees Joey would wither like a daisy in winter.

Joey stretched out of his chair with a groan that he wasn’t that fragile.

They sat in the outdoor section of a pleasant restaurant nearby and Joey really felt like he could take his time with his food there. He was sorely mistaken when Seto’s meal disappeared so quickly it was more likely the slender man had thrown it to a nearby stray dog than eaten it. And when that sharp gaze monitored his speed like a timer for a swimmer’s laps he felt himself eating faster than ever.

A little sick after how quickly he’d eaten Joey slipped back behind his computer, noting and despising the pleased smirk on his manipulative secretary’s face as the evil timekeeper checked his wristwatch, and stretched his fingers out before touching them, gently, to the keys.

At that very moment a chime echoed in his quiet office and Seto lunged for the computer screen, swivelling it around to face him (Joey took time to marvel at the fact that it did that, he didn’t know it could do that) and reaching around to pick up what Joey could now recognise as a video chat. He craned his neck around curiously but was pushed back behind the screen by Seto’s firm fingers.

“Yugi.” Seto greeted as he picked up the call.

“Oh. Hi Kaiba.” Joey smiled at hearing his old friend’s voice again. It had deepened a bit with age and Yugi now sounded quite similar to Atem. “Is Joey there?”

His arm extended toward the screen and he almost announced his presence before he was cut off.

“I’m afraid you haven’t called at the most opportune of times. Mr Wheeler is currently preoccupied with work and cannot speak at the moment. You do know, however, that you are most welcome to leave a message for him.” Seto gave an apologetic smile like he couldn’t help how work-crazy his boss was and Joey just stared incredulously at him, his arm limply dropping to the table surface.

He felt thirty-five-year-old Joey take a step back from the situation, as if this was best.

“Oh yeah… um… could you tell him that Rebecca and I are having our first kid? I know he couldn’t come to our wedding last year because of that charity dinner, and I’m not one to dis charity, but do you think he could make time this year for our anniversary party next month? Becky’s really gotten into the socialite lifestyle lately and finds a reason to throw a party for everything. He doesn’t even have to go to _that_ one, we’re having others. Get-togethers and stuff.”

“I’ll check his schedule but I can’t make any guarantees.”

“As long as you try. We all miss him around here y’know, he used to spend Christmases with us; I just… don’t want him to overwork himself.”

“You don’t have to worry about that Yugi. I’m taking good care of him, rest assured.”

“Mhmm. I trust that you are. You’ve been with Joey since he started his pipe dream of owning a company and you're one of the reasons he’s gotten so far in such a short time; I’m certain you're doing your best to propel him forward and we’re all super grateful to you. You know, Seto, you can come to the parties too. We’d all be just as happy to have you as to have Joey.”

“Thanks for the invitation Yugi. I’ll try to pry myself from his side and visit.”

Yugi laughed his sweet, childlike laugh that hadn’t changed since high school. “You don’t have to do that, just drag him along with you. You deserve a break, the both of you.”

“Thank you for your concern Yugi, and your call. I’ll let him know about the baby and anniversary party. Congratulations by the way, you’ll be lovely parents.”

“Aw thanks Seto. We can only do our best. Well, then, goodbye.” Joey could imagine him waving pleasantly with a young-at-heart smile and innocent eyes.

Seto turned the screen back around and tapped the display that was void of his friend’s face.

“Back to work.” He said and turned to exit again.

“… I could’ve answered that.” He muttered forlornly. He felt that same ache and sickness as when he’d heard how his family had turned out.

Yugi was married. To Rebecca. Who, if he remembered right, was the genius granddaughter of Yugi’s granddad’s friend, professor Hawkins. The last time he’d seen Rebecca in his reality was, what felt like, a few months ago when she’d come visiting with her grandpa. She’d grown into quite a beauty.

And they were having a baby.

He felt that he’d only come across all of this now, in this reality too. Everything Yugi had said was news to him and he really had skipped one of his best friend’s weddings for a charity dinner.

Seto, meanwhile, had turned and slowly stalked back to him.

“Do you know how long it’s been since you talked to Yugi?” he began slowly. “Face to face, on a phone, through a text message?” Seto demanded. Joey shook his head numbly.

“Three years, when you _finally_ obtained the company _you wanted_.” Seto put his palms on the dark wood of the desk and leaned into Joey’s face with an intense look in his eyes. “You agreed then, like you have ever since, that your work, _this company_ , was the most important thing in your life. I’d lost some faith in your promise when Vivian came along but you won me back with that contract, you proved to me that you have what it takes to run a successful business and I’ve dedicated my myself to helping you along the way, the _whole_ way.

If you are going to falter now; sacrifice the blood, sweat and tears we poured into making you one of the youngest company presidents in the world then you might as well give me the company now because I will, remorselessly and without hesitation, steal it from your ungrateful hands.”

Joey thought that this was probably what it felt like to make a deal with the devil. Largely beneficial but with the threat of imminent doom in the distance. He quavered internally but stood his ground.

“It was only a phone call.”

Seto’s fingertips whitened, suddenly bent emphatically against the varnished surface of the desk and his heated glare didn’t fade.

“You’re wasting _precious seconds_ , Mr Wheeler, sir.” With a deep breath Seto seemed to reign in his irritation and step back from the desk. “I’m afraid at this rate you’ll have to work over time.” Joey’s spine jolted him upright and his eyes widened. What was this? He felt like he was being grounded or given detention.

“What? Why?”

“Because you wasted time on this conversation and on listening in with Yugi instead of working at your usual pace. It seems I need to make more time arrangements for your adjustment period after Mai. Work hard sir.” Seto said from behind suddenly darkened lenses as he walked out.

_Oh great, you got me in trouble._

Joey startled at the him that was not him in his mind but allowed his older self to get on the work that Seto had given them. If he didn’t know any better he’d say that _he_ worked for Seto and not the other way around.

_Both of those are wrong,_ his elder self explained. _We work together. We’re a team. We’re partners and he’s only ever looked out for me and assured my dream. I owe him my success._

_Pft, he’s infected ya wid his little workaholic germs. Yer sick if ya think ya c’n live yer whole life without friends ‘r family._

_My company’s my baby and I’ll find a girl who can handle the lifestyle someday._

_Y’know yer sleepin’ alone tanight, right?_

_Yeah, we both are._

There was a mutual decision for mental silence and as the sun slowly dove into the horizon he felt the loss of time like a ball and chain dragging his heart down with it. When Seto finally came to take him home it was close to midnight and his eyes were drooping.

“I apologise for my outburst earlier, sir. I know I’m too hard on you sometimes, you need to rest-,”

Joey chuckled, stood and stretched.

“You don’t have to apologise Set’, I _have_ been acting strangely lately but I think I’ll be better in the morning, you don’t need to loosen my schedule _or_ investigate me.” Seto was silent as Joey walked past him.

“Well, let’s go home then,” he launched over his shoulder at the tentatively following secretary.

The drive back to his mansion was filled with talk over his schedule and ideas for promotion and new developments for the company. Joey noticed that he had a constant, small smile around his mouth during the ride that didn’t leave his face until he’d left Seto behind in his car and traipsed into his looming, gloomy mansion. He undressed throughout his house on his way to his room, certain the housekeeper would pick up the stray garments in the morning.

He clambered into bed as gracelessly as he always had and turned toward the space beside him. _Soon_ , he promised himself as he turned around and switched off his bedside light.

The darkness enveloped him and made him feel that much more alone.

**_“Joey…!”_ **

**_“Joey!”_ **

**_“Please…”_** the voice like rolling thunder wheedled and Joey was severely creeped out. He found a wall in the reddish darkness and pressed his back to it. It must not find him, he was _absolutely_ sure; it should _never_ find him.

**_“Can you hear me…?”_ **

**_“Please…”_ **

**_“Joey!”_ **


	3. Groundhog Joey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, since there seems to be a pattern of obstacles to my uploading on a Saturday forming, looks like Sunday's gonna be the official update date.  
> I hope I don't jinx this day too (-_-)  
> I also hope this chapter is enjoyable (^_^) these are the first couple so it's been a while since I looked at them.  
> Comments and criticism are welcome ~

He smelled dirty socks and almost thought he was back in his dorm room.

His face twisted as he crawled to the world of awakening on his hands and knees and pried his heavy eyelids open to take in his new surroundings, expecting another outrageous setting. He frowned as he set his eyes on various card game posters, three of which with people he knew on them.

The posters depicting him and Yugi were beside each other and the one presenting Seto Kaiba, in all his showboat glory, was on the wall opposite, and uncomfortably close to, the foot of his bed. The grandiose teen was almost unrecognisable through the three drooping darts and countless puncture holes spotting the ink of his face.

Joey frowned. Same smell, same walls; hell, even the piles of clothes on the floor were the same. He even recognised the sheets he’d wrapped his limbs in.

A sense of tentative elation filled his chest like a balloon of hope as he detached himself from his blankets and began to think that he really was back in his dorm room. He stood up and weaved through his piles of clothing with growing confidence, grabbed a pair of pants and dragged them over his legs as he pushed his door open and abruptly had his dream crushed.

No.

He was, most definitely, not back home. He felt a wave of dizziness and fatigue lap at him along with his sadness and stumbled into the kitchen of the small apartment. The brunette in front of the sink turned and gave him a tentative smile before fully turning around and greeting him.

“Welcome to the land of the living Jo.”

“Morn’ Téa,” he nodded to her on the way to the fridge and examined her outfit out of the corner of his eye as he drank the last of the apple juice they had from the carton. Her crop top was pale pink and her jean shorts were ripped, her slim, pale waist was on display and she had those dancer’s legs that seemed to go on forever.

_‘S a damn shame…_

Téa seemed to be wary of his gaze and walked a little ways away to sit at their pitiful dining table. She held her neon-tipped talons-for-nails hands together and looked at them through her mascara. Joey blindly dug through the fridge for something edible and came across an apple. He got to eating it as Téa very obviously struggled with something before him. He watched indifferently for about a minute but soon decided to break the tension.

“Yer dolled up,” he pointed out, “Hot date?”

Téa’s hands only clenched further around each other and her head hung lower. He took another slow bite of his apple as he waited for something from the tense girl and some additional part of himself let relief flood his veins for at least being the same age as when he’d left his home world this time.

“I know you said it last night but… you really don’t hate me? For what I did to you?” Téa asked her quivering hands. Joey shrugged and swallowed the lump of apple-flavoured mush in his mouth.

“What didja do ta me?” he asked nonchalantly and took another casual bite of the fruit in his palm when Téa looked up at him with fevered eyes and an uncertain expression as she searched his face for a trace of ill-feelings.

Finding none only seemed to agitate her. “I _used_ you Joey. I used your body to feed my denial and now, a month later, I’m throwing you away like – like… an old _toy_.” Her voice is emotional but not loud, almost as if she’s afraid of speaking louder; like what she’d done was a deep, dark secret and no one should ever know.

Joey blinked a few times and licked at the sweetness on his lips.

“I don’ _feel_ abandoned an’ if anyone should be apologisin’ it’s me,” he stepped toward the table and rested his forearms on the surface, shaking his head at her unspoken denial of his interpretation of events.

“I kinda guessed why ya were all over me about a week inta our thing. I kept sleepin’ with ya ‘cause I figured ya’d figure yerself out sooner ‘r later an’ I’d lose my chance.” he chuckled. “So don’ apologise. I took advantage of my pretty, confused friend. I’m despicable an’ should be locked away-,” he held up a finger when it looked like Téa would argue, “- but… none o’ dat matters now ‘cause yer in love and will live happily ever after, capiche?”

Joey glared at her over his apple before taking another bite. A forceful rapping on the door jarred the tension Téa had managed to create and Joey smirked aloofly.

“There’s ya one true love right now; Téa, be a sweetheart an’ open the door wouldja?” he grinned at her annoyed glance in his direction as she approached the door and greeted the tall blonde outside. The slow tap of red, high-heeled boots brought golden legs that disappeared into a black leather skirt into their shared abode. Mai's breasts were on display, as they were wont to be, and Joey regretted, on behalf of every man who’d ever met her, that Mai had spent the last couple of years as an out lesbian.

“Ready to go cupcake?” she asked Téa in her naturally seductive voice. Téa nodded an affirmative while Joey nibbled on the remaining flesh of his apple. Once Mai laid her eyes on him her forehead creased in confusion.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she pointed a blood-red nail at him. He licked his lips again and shook his head.

“Quit.” He explained.

“Again?” Téa asked exasperatedly.

Joey strolled to the ‘far’ end of their tiny kitchen and dropped the apple core in the trashcan, running his hands under the tap in the nearby sink to get rid of the stickiness on his fingers.

“Wanted ta promote me ta manager.” He gave them. Mai rolled her eyes.

“You _could_ have just said no.”

“Was tired of it anyway.” Joey felt numbness in his chest but nonchalantly walked past the pair of girls with his words. “Anyway, shouldn’t ya two get goin’? Didn’ ya have a date ta get ta?”

Mai glanced at her watch and gasped a little. “That’s right; I’m late for my shoot!”

“Shoot?” Téa parroted.

“Oh it’ll just be an hour or two, I swear, then we’ll drive to the next town over and go to the bar I told you about.” Mai assured the shorter brunette girl as she began to drag her out of the apartment. Joey poked his thumbnail into his mouth and watched them slowly exit.

“You didn’t tell me you had a shoot! And you said we were going _dancing_! _Locally_!”

“I wanted to see you, hon, and we _are_ going dancing; pole dancing and dancing on top of bars, aspiring choreographer like you, you’ll love it. Now let – go of the door – frame. You’ll break a nail.”

“Waaaiiiitwaitwaitwait I’m not mentally prepared for this! Mai! Let me go!”

“Nuh uh, it’s time to break out of your shell honey, here,” Mai expertly wrenched Téa from the door frame and pulled her in close, Joey’s left eyebrow climbed his forehead. “I only brush lips with butterflies.” She murmured lowly to a furiously blushing Téa. The brunette began to splutter as the taller blonde torturously slowly leaned in.

“I – don – M-Mai…” she put up a half-hearted fight, her hands coming up between their bodies only to inevitably land on the elder girl’s all too prominent bosom. Mai blinked, Téa yelped, Joey snorted. It took a second but a light blush spread over Mai's face as well and Téa’s strawberry-red cheeks paled slightly at the sight.

“Mai…?” she whispered, bringing her other hand up to cup the taller girl’s cheek and drawing their faces closer. Their breath intermingled and their heartbeats synched. Téa hid her crystal blue irises behind blushing eyelids and Mai gradually descended on those sweet, pink -

“Y’know, butterflies hatch fr’m cocoons, not eggs.” Joey thoughtfully interjected.

“Mood-killer!” Mai screeched with the aura of a demon and Joey laughed. Téa stepped away from Mai's embrace and caught her breath.

“As awesome as two hot girls kissin’ on my doorstep is, I’ve gotta be somewhere in half ‘n hour an’ someone needs ta give me somethin’ before she leaves fer who knows how long.” Joey beckoned to Téa and watched her face suddenly light up in realisation. She slowly walked back towards him, rummaged around in her purse and pulled out a couple of notes. He held out his hand and she handed them to him.

“I think I’ll be back tomorrow but just in case I’m not I want you to get me my green tea and don’t forget the juice you just finish-,” her words were muffled when he pressed her body to his, hugging her tightly and planting a brief kiss on top of her head. He pushed her away slightly to smile into her startled expression.

“Be safe. Don’ talk ta strangers an’ don’ let Mai bully ya too much.” He grinned, turned her around and guided her to the door again. “You two have fun now, only get tattoos when sober, see ya.” He called after them on his way to the shower.

He heard the door click shut and the far jingle of keys in the lock while warm water showered his head. The liquid disappeared into his hair to drip from melded locks of blonde strands. He ran a hand through his hair and noted that it was long again, longer than it had been in his original reality which was already beginning to feel like a long way away no matter how similar things were around him. He sighed and leaned his head against the wall. Tired. He was inexplicably tired and the soothing wash of water wasn’t helping him stay awake.

He rushed through getting ready, already thoroughly late for his appointment; approached the front door and pulled on the knob only to realise that Téa had locked it on her way out and he’d forgotten to grab his keys. It was probably the worst moment to remember that he _couldn’t_ remember where he’d put his keys. He automatically searched himself, vaguely knowing that he wouldn’t find them on his person, then bolted into his room where he proceeded to make a mess messier by digging through every object for storage he could find muttering, “Where’s the Younger Sibling Cleanin’ Service when ya need it?” It brought a smile to his face and he searched a bit more cheerfully.

The epiphany came halfway through his underwear drawer.

His head shot up in a shower of boxers and he scrambled to his feet, almost tripping over a pair of jeans and slipping on one of those discarded boxers. He ran back into the tiny kitchen/living room (it reminded him of his Christmas reality’s house only much much smaller and without pancakes) and stretched his hands up to the space between the cupboards and the ceiling.

He remembered playing with his keys when he’d come home the night before. They’d ended up slipping into the slot between cupboard and ceiling and, despite initially cheering at the cool way it had swung into the space, he’d been too lazy to reach into the darkness (and a little scared but that was something he’d only admit to himself) and pull it out so had resolved to do it in the morning.

Well, morning had come he told himself and if he remembered correctly it was above the third cupboard from the left so he stood before the stove and put on his war-face.

His bare hand dabbed at the dust for a few seconds before he felt something. He smiled with relief… until it moved.

“YahaaAAAIIIEEEE!” he screamed as it scuttled onto his quickly retracting hand and managed to stay there until his violent flailing at last dislodged it and it retreated to a dark corner.

“HIIInnnmmmmrgh.” He neighed; trying to hold in another embarrassing scream that he would swear was Téa’s if the neighbours ever asked.

“What- fuckin’- _crap_! Shit! Ya scare- surprised me ya damn-!” he yelled at the long-gone spider but controlled his breathing and was back to an easily excitable rest. He eventually plucked up the courage to look at the traitorous dark space.

Hoping that spider didn’t have kids, or was poisonous, he stretched an only slightly trembling hand back into the crevice and quickly grabbed what felt like keys after a serious investigation as to whether it was key-shaped.

His victory was short-lived when he checked his watch and realised that he was now _very_ late. He unlocked, exited and locked the door again and roughly shoved the hard-won keys into his back pocket. With a bad-tempered scowl on his face he jogged down the stairs that led out of his apartment and made his way to where he’d meet Yugi.


	4. Today is Gonna be a Good Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *a wild fanfic author appears*
> 
> Yo, peeps. *proceeds with awkward*  
> So... so many promises and guarantees broken; and I am the soz for not doing the one thing I prewrote this whole damn thing for - regular updates. In my defence, I had a sudden severely depressive episode that I'm still kinda climbing out of so I hope your loving and kind souls will do the forgives for me.  
> I'm not just here to make excuses though ~
> 
> I figure, since I'm not gonna be able to follow an update schedule I'll just plop the whole shebang here so I can't angst over whether it's edited enough or not. Kinda wish AO3 had an auto-update feature so I wouldn't have to put out an apology because I wouldn't have messed up in the first place (If it does and I am just a blind, tech-challenged space case then pls let me know?).
> 
> I'mma toss out another sorry for if you're subscribed and get a wave of notifications (^_^")
> 
> Finally, I hope you enjoy the remainder of this story if you were waiting for more of it. I would still be supes happy to get whatever comments you've got for me ~

When he got to their favourite coffee shop Yugi was, predictably, surrounded by girls.

The short, oddly-haired, sweet-faced boy had faced a popularity boost when they had entered college. He attracted girls like bees to a multi-coloured flower; and Joey remembered Téa having a bit of trouble with it in the beginning but slowly letting go of the fact that she was his only female friend, and branching into her own new circles. It _never_ failed to annoy Tristan, he recalled, but _that_ brunet had started spending more time with Duke around then so had gotten used to drawing a large amount of attention without actually receiving any of it.

Joey chuckled as the girls seemed to be getting more intense, one even taking the seat next to Yugi and the other whipping out her phone to get his number. Jogging now, he put on a show of being hurried (wasn’t too hard, he _was_ late) and weaved through the tables to get to Yugi.

The display of absolute relief on the little guy’s face drew the girls’ eyes to the new arrival.

“Hey there Yug’,” he gasped out; laboured enough to make it seem like he hurried but hadn’t full-on raced, “Sorry I’m late. Wanna go buy dat anniversary gift fer yer girlfriend?”

Yugi took the out. He nodded, stood and apologised to the disappointed girls with a sweet, nervous look that had them instinctively forgiving him. Joey glanced back on their way out and just knew they were discussing how cute Yugi was. He glanced down at the person in question and saw him breathe easy.

“Thanks Jo,” he said with a smile up at the blonde. “But it’s a birthday present, not an anniversary gift. We’ve only been going out for a couple months.”

“I know,” Joey crossed his arms behind his head as they strolled and felt morning sunshine on his face. “I figured they’d back off easier if dey thought ya were in a longer relationship. Puttin’ effort into an anniversary gift makes it sound like yer in love.”

Yugi laughed. “Is that so?”

They quickly dropped the subject and talked of other things on their way. Luckily, Yugi’s favourite store wasn’t far from their favourite coffee shop and, in a few minutes, the door to Anubis Antiques jingled and they stepped inside.

Dusty as it seemed from the outside it was actually quite well-maintained and, for an antique store, it sold fairly new stuff too. So it’s better to say it was an obscure odds-and-ends store and Yugi loved it for several reasons.

One: it reminded him of his grandpa’s game store so it was a bit like going home.

Two: there was an “adventure in every aisle. I remember exploring grandpa’s store when I was a kid. It just takes me back,” which was, basically, reason one.

And three happened to be Yugi’s taller, more tanned and definitely more cool than cute doppelganger who seemed to be the only employee the store had.

“Hey Atem.” Joey called upon entering.

“Oh, good morning Joey.” Atem looked up from the intricate ornament he’d been polishing and only spared the blonde a greeting glance before searching around him. Joey fought the urge to sigh and roll his eyes.

“Morning Atem!” Yugi seemed to glow and bounded to the taller. “What is that? Can I see it? What does it do?” he fired off questions like a machine gun but Atem was quite used to it and answered all his queries patiently, handing him the object and giving him his undivided attention. Joey, used to this routine, wandered around the dark store and stared at the weird and wonderful things.

Atem seemed to have obtained new merchandise as well as new old games. He smiled at how well-arranged and well-maintained that section was. Atem knew Yugi loved the games part of the store the most.

He made his way back to the pair and slowly approached their bubble of friendly conversation, regretting having to be the one to burst it.

“Yug’,” he called for the shorter boy’s attention. “We came here for somethin’, remember?”

“Oh yeah!” Yugi suddenly recalled. He gently put the ornament down and put on his thinking face. Atem seemed to sense that he wasn’t going to like the answer but asked the question anyway as he lifted the object Yugi had put down and carried it to a nearby shelf.

“You didn’t just come to visit? What are you here for then?”

Yugi still had his thinking face on and Joey despaired at having to hurt the shopkeeper. But, well, he supposed it was better than hearing what he was about to say from Yugi’s mouth.

“A birthday present. Fer Yugi’s girlfriend.” He explained with a poker face.

Atem’s face fell slightly. “Ah.”

“She’s apparently really inta da kind of weird an’ wonderful stuff ya sell ‘Tem.” Joey hated having to rub salt in the other boy’s wounds but he needed to realise that his feelings were a bit hopeless. Catching the look the blonde was throwing at him Atem gave a frantic ‘I can’t help it’ expression and ruffled his spiky hair agitatedly.

“Grab whatever you think she’ll like then.” He grabbed a chair, fell into it and hung his head over the back. Joey felt a bit conflicted about the fact that one of his friends was in gay love with another (it was different when it came to Mai and Téa). He wondered what the older boy saw in his cute counterpart, because if it was his looks he was attracted to, that was just a bit narcissistic.

Yugi didn’t take much longer to decide. Pointing out that he loved the ornament he and Atem had been discussing earlier and that she’d love it too. Atem rang it up with dead eyes but was cheered up when Yugi insisted they stay and keep him company. A conversation followed and Joey slowly became more and more confused about which side he should be on when it came to the Atem and Yugi case. He couldn’t definitely decide to root for or shoot down Atem’s feelings.

“… but I really wanna go exploring, like my dad and grandpa did. Treasure hunting and stuff.” Yugi happily announced. Joey just smiled without saying anything. It had been Yugi’s dream since before they’d met each other in high school. “My first stop would be Egypt of course,” he grinned widely, “Both my dad and granddad said that was their favourite place to explore. I wanna see majestic sands and the pyramids and real, live, hieroglyphs!”

They laughed at his enthusiasm and he blushed lightly but joined in.

“You know,” Atem added while the laughter was dying down, “I’m from Egypt.”

“You are?” Yugi’s eyes widened in childish wonder and Joey snorted.

“With a name like ‘Atem’ how could ya not be.” He inserted and he could see Yugi make the connection. He looked a little embarrassed at not figuring it out before and Joey felt a little bad so he ruffled the shorter’s hair.

“Relax Yug’, it’s just one o’ dose things in plain sight that ya don’ notice ‘less yer payin’ attention.”

“I’m actually going back home to visit my family next month. Do you want to come with?” Atem offered, a little more of his heart on the line than it looked to be.

“Is that okay?”

Yugi wanted to.

“I don’t know if I could afford the plane ticket…”

He _really_ wanted to.

“That’s alright; I’ll take care of it.” Atem smiled like the motherfucking charmer he was.

“What do you think, Joey?”

He was still on the fence about the relationship thing but Atem didn’t look like the type to jump a taken, unsuspecting straight guy so he shrugged.

“Hey, it’s _your_ once in a lifetime chance ta fulfil ya dream of goin’ ta Egypt, not mine.” Atem found a way to communicate that he was prostrating himself in thanks and Yugi was easily being convinced that the trip was a good idea.

“I think I’ll go then.” He decided and Joey could have sworn the happy atmosphere in the room became unbearable. The elation of having the person you like with you on a trip and the excitement of going somewhere you’ve dreamed of merged into one happy luminescence that suffocated anyone not on the same level of happy.

Joey decided that was his cue and stood.

“Wow, look at the time,” he said without checking the time, “I promised ta have lunch with Mokuba taday. I’m gonna get goin’. See ya.” He waved on his way out, barely waiting for a goodbye.

The sun had turned fiery and made a concentrated effort to scorch his back as he made his weary way to the restaurant where he’d promised to meet the raven-haired teen. Picking a table on the edge of some shade he stared up at the scudding clouds in the sky until Mokuba cleared his throat and brought his gaze down.

He blinked oil-rainbow spots out of his eyes and focused on the teen. He looked largely similar to his home reality Mokuba. His hairstyle hadn’t changed over the years and the school uniform was different. His home reality Mokuba was in a private school in Paris now, if he remembered correctly. This Mokuba seemed to go to Domino High School like he and the rest of the gang had.

“What’s up kid?” he began, rubbing at his eyes and stretching.

Mokuba bit his lip and sighed. His cheeks reddened ever so slightly and he put the heel of his hand to his forehead. It took a second but he blurted it out.

“You know Rebecca?”

“Hawkins? Think I was da one who introduced ya, why?”

“Did you know that she teaches high school now?”

Joey tapped his chin and vaguely recalled an update from Yugi involving the subject.

“Mmyeah, I think she said she wanted ta try it out, since she never really got ta enjoy da high school experience.” Mokuba shoved his face into his hands.

“Well why’d she have to come back as a teacher? And why at _my_ high school?”

Joey frowned at the boy before realising and laughing at the young Kaiba's antics.

“You don’ like bein’ a teacher’s pet?” Mokuba looked up at him through his fingers.

“That’s not it. She treats me the same as everyone else in class but between classes we’re friends and, well, rumours have gotten around.”

Joey nodded along with the explanation and sat back at that.

“Well, dat stuff ya just ignore Mokes, ya should know that.”

“I know, I know, that doesn’t bother me, what bothers me is that… I kinda wish they were true…”

Joey’s eyelashes fluttered and he tilted his head.

“Wait… you like Rebecca?” Mokuba wouldn’t meet his eyes and nodded at the table.

Joey leaned back again and rubbed his neck. “Well, the solution ta dat is also pretty simple.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. Tell her ya like her an’ ask her out.”

Mokuba’s face quickly fell as he was offered the solution. Joey knew what he was worried about.

“She might be a teacher but yer the same age an’ ya knew her before that. Dere’s nothin’ wrong wid _dat_. An’ she might reject ya,” Mokuba’s expression turned panicked, “but tha’s gonna happen a lot in life. At some point ya gotta learn ta deal wid it.”

“… I don’t think I like that advice.”

“It’s what I got kid. You coulda gone ta someone wiser but ya chose me.”

“Well I couldn’t go to my brother; he’s married to Kaiba Corp.” Mokuba crossed his arms and sat back in his seat. Joey laughed.

“Speakin’ of Mr High an’ Mighty, how’s that stick up his ass doin’?”

“Bent out of shape because of you.”

Joey put his hands up. “Hey, I never went near his ass.” Mokuba chuckled.

“I mean he’s still super ticked at you for turning down an internship at Kaiba Corp’s game division, _the_ Kaiba Corp game division!” Mokuba's voice turned into a tone like rubbing a cat the wrong way, it sounded similar to his brother’s.

“Quote un-quote?” Joey asked with a wide smile at the imitation.

Mokuba nodded and laughed again. “Why did you turn him down anyway? You know him inviting you means that he finally recognises you as a competent gamer, right? He’s actually acknowledged you since you became third in the world, you know?”

Joey smiled and felt that numbness in his chest again. “He should know that I can’t keep a job.”

“Yeah,” Mokuba leaned forward again, “Yugi told me that was because the moment it looks like you're getting somewhere you quit, not because you're no good at what you do.”

Joey shrugged and refused to look the other in the eye. “I’m ta busy enjoyin’ my youth ta take on da responsibility of a promotion. Plus I kinda don’t know what I wanna do yet. I’ll get serious when I’m older, kay? Not everyone can be yer brother ya know.” He explained and quickly changed the topic.

He distracted the younger man by letting Mokuba gush over Rebecca long enough to make him sick then directed the conversation to people he knew. Skilfully steering their repartee away from him and his life they easily spent a good part of the afternoon on each other.

“… if you were in the gamer division you’d be on that team.”

“Making virtual reality a reality?”

“That is actually the slogan, yes.” Mokuba attempted to sell him on the internship idea like he’d done at least eight times in their conversation. Joey could admit that he was a little swayed and the constant advertising hadn’t annoyed him really. His pocket buzzed and he dug out his cell phone and answered it.

“Hey dude! We’re at the movie store, where the hell are you?”

“Oh hey Tris’, my bad. Got a little distracted. I’ll be dere soon, gimme fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.” Tristan grumbled and hung up. Joey pulled his phone away from his ear and looked at the darkening screen.

“It’s true. No one ever says goodbye dese days.”

“What are you and Tristan doing?” Mokuba asked curiously as he stood up.

Joey followed suit and followed the younger boy to his car. “Gettin’ scary movies.”

“Oh? Want a ride to the only movie rental place still in existence?”

Joey laughed and agreed, swinging his body into the car seat beside Mokuba. The unnecessarily rich teen told his personal driver where to go and then sat back.

“I suggested just downloadin’ the movies but they said they wan’ed a _classic experience_.”

“Quote, un-quote?” Mokuba sniggered.

“Yeah.” Joey grinned.

“’They’ huh? So it’s not just you and Tristan?”

“Naw. Duke and Tris’ have this weekly competition ta see who gets ta hang out with Serenity for the rest of the week.”

Mokuba giggled. “They still do that?” he asked incredulously.

“Yep,” Joey popped the ‘p’. “An’ somehow I’ve turned inta the ref. This week’s a scream test. We’re havin’ a scary movie marathon tanight, da first o’ dem ta scream loses.” Joey explained on his way out of the car as it stopped and pulled up to the movie rentals place. “Thanks fer the ride Mokes.”

“Bye Joey.”

The blonde waved at the car on its way until he was suddenly jumped from behind. He staggered forward; feeling like his weight had doubled.

“You’re late!” he heard and turned around, not sure himself how he managed to with an extra body on his back.

“Hey there Duke,” he called to the merciless green eyes behind him, straightening and simultaneously dislodging his attacker. Tristan fell with a thump, an ‘oof’ and a glare. Joey looked over his shoulder at his friend to see if he was injured. When the only thing found to be hurting was the other boy’s pride he offered that they enter the store and followed Duke inside.

They exited half an hour later with three movies and a rowdy wave of cackling. Duke directed them to his car and spent the sunset driving to his house. Settled on the sofa in front of an impossibly large flat screen TV the boys switched off all the nearby lights, closed the curtains against the remnants of the sunset and put the dvd in the player. A few minutes into the movie it was noted that they’d forgotten the popcorn and, despite his friends’ begging, Joey was the one to get it while the movie rolled.

A few more minutes and Joey was making his way back to their home-made cinema, two precariously balanced bowls of popcorn in his arms. The darkness of the room he approached bled into the hallway like ink. The colours of the TV screen flickered within this frame of darkness and when the light began to leisurely redden the darkness swirled like a two-tone puddle of blood. The unnatural silence told him something was coming and his heart twisted in anticipation. Abruptly twin bloodcurdling shrieks propelled him into the air along with an array of disturbed popcorn.

Recovering from his shock and muttering curses at the little white puff snacks he had to avoid stepping on he stomped into the room. This didn’t have much of an effect as the floors were carpeted, in fact, Duke and Tristan didn’t even register his entrance.

Irked, he opened his mouth to yell at them for screaming so loud but this idea was quickly replaced with another.

Softly padding over to where the pair of boys sat clutching each other’s shirts, one shivering violently and the other scared stiff, he slowly bent forward, timing the words with the scare on the screen he whispered into their company of ears.

“How’s the movie?”

“YAAAAAHHHH!” they hollered in tandem again and Joey doubled over laughing when Duke apparently registered his question and added a “Terrifying!” in the trail-off after his scream. They glared, embarrassed, at his laughter until he remembered the way he’d screamed over the spider that morning and suddenly sobered.

The pair stood and each released the fabric of the other’s shirts and reached toward Joey to grab a bowl of popcorn. With an uncomfortable cough at the sudden end to his laughter Joey sat between the pair on the couch.

“So… both o’ ya lost… twice.” He informed the contestants, the movie still playing before them. Both of them hung their heads in shame and awaited their punishment but Joey just laughed again and decided to change the rules.

“Relax,” he chortled, “I’ll give ya guys another chance. How ‘bout: … first one ta five screams loses?” he offered graciously and Duke and Tristan perked and gratefully agreed. They dove back in to the game with enthusiasm and Joey shook his head and grabbed handful of popcorn.

They got through the first two movies and a quarter of the third before sleep claimed them.

The pillow Duke had grabbed a movie and a half ago, before being told that muffling screams was against the rules, lay, clutched lazily to his chest. Joey’s head rested on it and Tristan’s head on Joey’s thigh, his hands fisted into Joey’s shirt with a death grip. Their eyes were closed, their mouths gaped and they drooled their nightmares into their respective headrests.

****

**_“Jo-…-y…”_ **

**_“Pl- … -se … -ser me…”_ **

**_“Connec- … -kening…”_ **

**_“Talk- … me wh- … still can…!”_ **

Why was it after him? What did it want? He felt bone-tired from fear, the hellish landscape before him was torture and the voice that kept calling him was so insistently terrifying!

Good! He thought. If it was cutting out that meant it was going away. It had probably sent him on this endless journey through realities. Maybe when he woke up next time he’d really be in his dorm room’s bed. He’d been intrigued at first but he hadn’t had a happy reality since the first.

Ah jeez he just wanted to go home!

**_“J- … -ey!”_ **

**_“-ser me!”_ **

**_“JO-…”_ **


	5. Zero to a Hunned

_“Do you know the true legend of the incubus?”_

Joey blinked at his surroundings, trying to find the source of the voice.

This was nothing at all like being in a new body. He was standing in a room glowing eerily with candlelight and facing the back of a messy-blond head. Bare, tanned skin swept over the mysterious man’s shoulders, tail-ending in shadows around his waist. He frowned as his eyes scanned down this familiar but shadowy man. Was he the one talking?

_“The goddess of love was married to the god of war. They were a tenuous couple and fought all the time. One day, they had such a terrible fight that the god of war struck his love and she fell into the otherworld; the world of death.”_

Joey gulped but stomped forward purposefully, with all the brash atmosphere he was known for. He reached out and grasped the guy’s shoulder to turn him around but recoiled sharply when the skin under his fingers was hotter than a stove turned up to nine.

He screamed in agony and cradled his hand, his body trembling in shock.

_“She was taken in by a family of spirits and housed, nurtured for three days.”_

He blinked rapidly and breathed through the pain. Once he’d gotten himself back under control, he decided against touching the unmoving blond ever again.

He tried walking around the guy to see his face but no matter how many steps he took around the man, he always saw a ruffled, blond head. He scowled in frustration and walked faster. In his irritation he failed to notice an uneven lay of the floorboards and tripped sideways.

He fell back, onto a soft bed, and felt firm hands on his bare shoulders. His mouth moved abruptly, without his intent.

_“They hid her as best they could but they were spirits of the damned and were regularly called upon for their punishments. Lonely, the goddess left the protection of their home and wandered about the world of death.”_

His eyes followed the hands on his shoulders to a man’s smile. Above him, too close, hovered a warm grin attached to a radiant head with hair that trickled like curved spikes of silk down the man’s face. His red hair was wet. He was probably fresh from a shower, his naked torso attested to that.

_“She came across a man, in a garden, mourning the wilted leaves of trees and flowers about him. She sat beside him to comfort him and asked what had made him sad. He did not look at her as she spoke and, instead, answered the dead grass beneath his feet.”_

The grinning man had glittering, amber eyes and used them to study Joey lovingly. Joey felt his eyes, in contrast, focused steadily on the man’s face, taking it all in. The red-haired man began to lower himself, his smile steadily approaching.

_“‘I miss my wife,’ he said, ‘Whenever she comes, this garden renews its life; but, whenever she goes, her precious place dies with misery.’”_

Their lips finally met and a pleasantly warm feeling pooled in Joey’s chest only to rush down into his stomach and become a tingling, lurching sensation that made his body buzz with untapped energy.

When they released each other they were breathing harshly against each other’s skin. The anticipatory tension was palpable and the pair’s bodies were pressed so close together they could swear that they’d melded onto each other in places.

_“The goddess of love was warmed by the man’s pure sentiment and began to feel envy for this nameless woman. She yearned for the same devotion from her own husband and, in a fit of jealousy, seduced the mourning man.”_

Their bodies began a slow, sensuous dance of heat and cool. Skin touched skin to produce fire and left skin to douse it. Water tapped his forehead every now and then, making Joey wince each time. He got annoyed and began to run his hands through the other man’s wet hair.

There were hisses from the strands under his palms and the room began to fill with sweet steam. He chuckled as the man above him winced and groaned in pain.

_“From their coupling, she received a child but, before it was born, the man’s wife returned. She was the goddess of life. And the goddess of love realised that she had seduced the god of death.”_

Once the man’s red hair was dry and slipped smooth like satin beneath Joey’s hands he lowered himself once again and breathed into Joey’s ear.

“Let me see your wings…”

_“In secret the goddess of love gave birth to a demon of want, envy and betrayal. That demon, once, had a name but it has been lost over time. Her child grew and became a jealous and lustful creature.”_

Joey felt a grin spread over his face and kissed the man’s eyelids. When he once again opened his yellow eyes Joey knew that he saw wings.

_“It could shift between man and woman. It craved sexual attention. It consumed so voraciously that any lover it had, died in agonised ecstasy. Anguished at his part in creating the creature, the god of death went to his child, raised his scythe and split it in two so that its power was halved.”_

Joey rolled them over and took top. There were sheets around his waist that seemed to shift out of his way as he moved to straddle the red-haired man with wonder in his deceived yellow eyes.

“Can I touch them?” his hand was already stretched out and Joey glanced at his empty back while the man stroked thin air; seeing and experiencing something that wasn’t there. A figure on the edge of his range of view startled him and he turned sharply.

The blond man from before was facing him lit up by an eerie candle and reading aloud from a crumbling book. Joey felt a hole in his stomach and drooped his head over his lover.

“Hey,” honey-hued eyes sparkled in boundless happiness, “What’s wrong Jo?”

_“This child was now a man and a woman; and their names were: Incu and Succub. They soon found that they had the power of deception and illusion. By feeding an illusion with sexual energy in a ritual no one alive knows, they formed another like them. This ritual can only be found in one book, placed in the oldest library of time,”_

“Nothing,” he quickly reassured. He felt a surge of need come over him but swallowed it down. He was going to take this slowly and carefully.

His hands reached down behind him and gripped something firm. He pressed its heat against his lower back before delicately running his hands over it and the red-haired man’s grin widened.

 **This is just a dream** , Joey thought.

_“They did this seven times before they were stopped and their legion-in-the-making was lost.”_

He felt searing, intrusive pain and his jaw strained with keeping it quiet; though the accompanying electric pleasure made him gasp. His lover moved gently below him, sensing his pain through the pleasure.

“Faster,” he managed to gasp out and forced a smile at the red-haired man’s concerned face.

“Faster and harder, trust me.”

“I love you.”

“ **AH**!”

_“These scattered across the world and became families that spawned more of their kind through reproduction. These are the succubi and incubi.”_

“ **What have I done?** ” he was crying. He could tell because his face was wet and his chest was aching with each gasping breath. He was holding something limp in his arms. It was cooling quickly but it used to be warm; pleasantly warm, like that cold place in his chest.

Joey’s ears were ringing when he blinked his heavy eyes open.

Had he been drinking? His skin felt like it had gained weight overnight, the pressure of it pressing down on his skull made him groggy and his forehead was warm.

He stirred and felt soft brushes over his skin, vaguely wet, like dew-fresh daisies slipping across his chest. He smiled in his sleep at the sensation and relaxed into the, admittedly, fun touches until they suddenly took a different tone when he felt the sharp sting of twin bites in the area... _around his nipples_?

His eyes flew open and, for a really long moment, Joey could only stare in disbelief.

Because where he’d expected to find two very clumsy mosquitoes were two of his closest friends. Dressed in nothing but his bed sheets. Their hands converging somewhere underneath said sheets that lined up perfectly with this tickling sensation he was getting on his thighs. Joey was going through the greatest internal conflict he’d had since Kaiba called his sister a spoiled brat and a parasite in the Married-To-His-Job reality. Well, not in so many words but, that _was_ the general gist of it.

Duke and Tristan looked up from their positions in breathing distance from his heaving chest with twin wicked grins and lapped at the blushing skin beneath their mouths. Joey jolted violently in shock and the pair chuckled and rose till they were hovering over him with their lazy smiles. Just like the red-haired man in his dream their chests were bare.

He would have shuddered at remembering the dark fantasy he’d awoken from but Joey was frozen in shock and confusion. His heart felt like it was pounding a thousand beats a minute and his body wouldn’t stop trembling. How was he going to get out of this? He couldn’t just play through this. _This_ was deeply disturbing.

Concern entered Tristan’s eyes but Duke just looked on curiously.

Tristan’s hand rested on his shoulder and he leaned close, whispering as softly as possible into Joey’s ear.

“You okay? Was it Hermos again?”

The familiar, friendly touch and comment calmed him and Tristan squeezed his shoulder and sat back up, a small reassuring smile on his face. Joey thanked his friend with his eyes. Duke, looking on with an expression on the edge of boredom and jealousy, trailed his hand down the blond’s abdomen.

Joey jumped again, “ _stop doing that!”_ he snapped.

Or, at least, he _wanted_ to snap; but some part of him, unfortunately the part that had dominion over his body, used the exaggerated thrill that pumped through his heart as an excuse to take the mood from friendly concern to something Joey really wished he could avoid experiencing right then. A playful _mm_ was aimed at Duke instead. Weird dreams beyond his control aside, Joey didn’t think he would be able to survive what he assumed would happen next, not mentally.

And yet, his mouth opened in an almost predatory smirk as he propped himself up and he said: “Ooh, am I sticky?”

Joey would have immediately hid his face underneath all five pillows in the array behind him if he had any say in what his body did right then. Tristan at least had the modesty to blush and chuckle behind a cough but Duke smirked wickedly.

“I’m sorry about that Jo,” Tristan blushed a brighter red and put a hand to the back of his head, nervously smoothing the buzz-cut hairs there no doubt, and Jo felt his eyebrows rise and a smile tug at his lips. Duke rolled his eyes but made sure to bow his head respectfully.

“I do hope we have not offended you, prince.”

Joey watched his arm lift and his hand caress Duke’s jaw until verdant eyes met chocolate and Duke’s hand was leaving the blond’s thigh, brushing briefly over his half-risen erection, dragging over his stomach and then resting on his sternum.

Successfully having pulled Duke’s face towards him, Joey tilted and brushed his lips against the dark-haired man’s, watching his other friend’s breath hitch out the corner of his eye while searching unblinkingly into Duke’s gaze and smiling gently.

“I’m fine, Duke,” he whispered against the other’s lips and, seeing the ghost of concern expelled, let Duke’s hungry kiss descend upon him. They caught each other’s lips again and again, the sound of Tristan moaning in appreciation egging them on to being more creative.

Trapped in this embrace, Joey thrashed and screamed for attention inside his own body but his self in this reality had far more control over their body than he, as a newcomer, did.

Tristan’s hand gripped his member and there was warm heat on his head and a tickling, swirling tongue as Duke decided to entertain himself with the blond’s neck. The momentary sense of out of body pleasure gave the reality-hopping Joey a chance to plead his case.

 _Hi, um, me,_ he thought to himself and felt the returning thoughts come languidly but with an air of hostility.

_I don’t know who you are, buddy, but you’re killing my mood in the back seat here._

He squeaked, or he wished he could squeak, he might have squeaked, it was hard to tell when he was thinking to himself. _I’m, uh, sorry ta… interrupt but ah… can we not- I- you- um, do this, taday?_

_… You do know that you’re they joy-rider here, right?_

_Uh,_ Joey mumbled when he realised his other self was waiting for an answer, _yeah-,_

_So what gives you the right to decide what we do with my body?_

_Uhh,_ Joey was acutely aware of more and more of his body becoming enveloped in wet warmth.

_The day I let a strange spirit decide my life for me, I’ll give you a call, until then you either take a hike or jump on the bandwagon._

Silence enveloped Joey’s brain as heat spread across more and more of his skin. Too distracted by the sensation to continue his conversation with this rather hostile version of himself coherently Joey took to stuttering through quick, shaky breaths.

_… You’re starting to look a bit interested in option two there, friend._

Shock at that suggestion snapped Joey to attention. _Please,_ he began to beg, _I’m only here fer taday. Probably – I think- s’probably how it works I’m pretty sure. Tha’s all. Come tomorrow I’ll be outta yer hair. I swear._

_Why not just enjoy the ride the-_

_I’ve **been** ridin’ it out! _

The force of his shout resounded in their shared head.

_I ca- I **can’t** do dis. I dunno who Tris’ and Duke are ta ya – ta me, in dis reality but I just fell asleep ta them bickerin’ over who gets ta ask my sister out. They’re jus’… my friends. I don’ wanna see ‘em like this._

_… Well you came at the wrong time if you wanted to be saved from my habits. Any day but today._ I _t’s too late because this is my last chance. I need this, I **want** this. You wouldn’t understand._

Joey’s body had started shivering uncontrollably as he hovered above Duke. Tristan’s warm, broad chest pressed against his back and tried to hold him steady.

“Jo?” he heard the concern in his oldest friend’s voice but it wasn’t enough to calm him, knowing what was about to happen.

Suddenly, Joey felt his consciousness pushed and then squashed away, as if he was shoved into a box. Darkness and silence surrounded him except for one simple square of awareness, where he heard a sympathetic thought as that window was pushed closed.

_You won’t see or hear anything back here. I really do need this but I’ll be back for you, don’t worry._

_I’ll help you._

Back in full control of his own body the incubus prince arched his back, turned his head and bit his old friend’s ear. His fangs drew blood that his forked tongue languidly lapped up.

“All good now,” he whispered to the larger man’s pointed ear and got a gentle squeeze around the waist before Tristan abruptly pushed him onto his hands and sank his own fang’s into the blond’s shoulder.

Joey groaned in pained pleasure and chuckled.

“Let the bachelor party begin I guess.”


	6. We're Both in This Together

He was slightly younger than usual when he looked in the mirror but that could be due to the fact that he was a supernatural creature.

Not a vampire though, he ruled that out when he could _see_ himself in the mirror. No, the evidence of his supernatural heritage showed in the unnaturally long tongue he rolled out like the pink carpet. He pulled it back into his mouth when it brought up thoughts he’d rather not entertain.

He then brought his hands up and stared at his nails. Not even Téa had nails as weird as he did now. Mai, maybe. He remembered how careful and deliberate she was with those brightly coloured talons; she’d never looked more like one of her harpies. He laughed to himself and was relieved to see his body follow suit despite how strange he found it. Tentatively opening his mouth he let the long, forked tongue that disturbed him so, wrap gently around a long thin fang and accidentally pricked the soft pink organ. Hissing in pain he thoughtlessly put a finger to the injury and hissed again when a row of little blades sliced through the corner of his mouth. He gave his bloody nail an incredulous stare, the serrated edges dabbed a bright red.

Why was everything on this body so… _sharp_?

_If Tristan and Duke were still here they’d think I finally cracked under the pressure of commitment._

As the thought resounded around their shared head Joey watched his borrowed tongue roll up protectively in his mouth, heard a sucking sound and tasted the copper of blood down his throat. After a few more tentative rolls his tongue unravelled, clean of blood and each forked end flickered playfully at his reflection.

A mix of disgusted and embarrassed, Joey’s soul tried to shut its eyes.

He heard himself laugh and peeked back through his own eyes again. He saw his body run his taloned fingers through his silky blond hair without injury.

“You learn quickly dimension hopper,” he watched his mouth move expertly around fangs and forked tongue alike and Joey quickly decided not to even attempt doing the same.

 _I’ve been in enough heads ta figure out how ta drive and when ta take a back seat,_ Joey thought absently as he practiced shutting his eyes to his body’s experiences.

“Suddenly so shy.” Joey heard as he managed to close his eyes to the sight of his body’s hand caressing a tattoo sensually placed just above his hip

Joey took the driver’s seat and grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist, noting the tattoo on his hip was of a fire, as his nails managed to snag on the fluffy fabric. He jolted as a memory he knew was not his flared through their mind.

_Ya gave me the body when ya three were done; I’m not allowed ta wonder what I’ve become?_

They exited the bathroom feeling like two genies in the same bottle. His current reality self easily tugged the reins out of his hands and steered them to the kitchen where he grabbed a mug and began to make himself a cup of coffee.

“So what brings you to my world, me?”

Joey was taken aback; which had been happening way too often just this morning. Never having been asked this question before he was a little unprepared.

 _I dunno,_ Joey began. After a momentary interruption in which he was startled by a soft, slightly furry rope wrapping around his leg he continued to speak to his thigh; _can’t remember what happened but I’ve been hoppin’ from reality ta reality fer a few days now._ He began to reach down to touch what was slowly dawning on him as a tail but felt his body’s eyes drift back up to the task at hand. _This is da one most different from my first one an’ it’s beginnin’ ta freak me out ‘cause da one before dis one was really close ta home, I could tell._

“You don’t remember what happened?”

_I woke up ten years younger on Christmas wid anudda me in mah head, before that I was me, jus’ me._

“So you remember where you’re from then? What’s the last thing you remember?”

Their body took a scalding sip of coffee while Joey thought.

_I was… playin’… but not Duel Monsters. It was like catch._

Their eyebrow raised, “You were playing catch with your dog?”

_Nah, my dragon._

The next sip slipped straight back out of their mouth, “Your _what?_ ”

 _Mah dragon, Red Eyes._ A memory flashed through their mind of an imposing, jagged creature; its scales like chunks of blood-stained obsidian, every edge of it curved and pointed like a reaper’s scythe, even its mouth which snapped around a gaping crevice of bone-dagger teeth.

Hot coffee splashed over his quivering hand as he held a hand to his heaving chest, “ _That –_ that creature of _Hell_ is your _pet_?”

 _Red Eye’s ain’t from Hell! He’s a duel monster, a – uh spirit creature? I don’ quite know what he is actually,_ Joey trailed off bashfully, _but he’s definitely not from Hell!_

“Spirit creature?” the coffee cup clacked onto the kitchen counter, “Like a familiar…?” his host-self muttered and then gave a wry chuckle, “almost thought we were more alike than I assumed.”

_Whaddaya mean?_

“I’m a demon,” he seemed to answer absently as the tail around his thigh unwound, the little hairs on it tickling him distantly as it went. The appendage came to a suggestive point and Joey felt embarrassed again. In seconds the tip morphed into something more arrow-like and the shifting of it brought that vague sense of disgust back to mingle with his discomfort.

_Tha’s… interestin’…_

“I have wings too,” he put a few fingertips to a shoulder as his demon-self walked them back to the bedroom.

_Like in tha dream._

Their body stumbled over nothing.

“You were there?”

_Yeah, sorry, I kinda just got dropped inta the middle-_

“That’s fine,” they were back to striding purposefully into the bedroom, “do you remember it?”

 _As clear as if it wadn’ a dream,_ Joey replied solemnly.

“Then you know what kind of demon I am,” he smirked, “what you’ve become.”

Joey wracked his brain, _uhh, a inky beast?_

Their body doubled over as demon-Joey wailed with laughter, “Inc-,” he attempted while catching his breath, “incubus.”

 _Tha’s what I said,_ Joey huffed.

He watched his tail flit with mirth as their body sat heavily on the pile of sheets and pillows left on the bed.

“Beelzebub’s _nuts_ , I’m funny.”

Thoughtful silence crept in. Joey could tell because the flitting of his tail became languid but purposeful, drawing slow, cryptic patterns as if it was chalk being put to a mathematician’s board.’

“Whenever you travel supernaturally, you need an anchor or you’ll drift,” he muttered and Joey panicked. Did he have that? He didn’t think he had that.

“Relax,” Joey’s demon-self placated him, not wanting to admit that he was freaking out a little too. It kind of felt like _he_ was the one who was going to have to drift throughout an endless score of dimensions.

“An anchor can vary in shape,” he muttered as if trying to recite from a textbook, “Why can’t I remember this?” he launched himself off the mess of sheets, “I read the book last week.”

_Wait, yer gettin’ this from a book?_

“Yes, so?” supernatural Joey muttered distractedly.

_This really happen that often ta ya?_

He snorted as they strode toward a bookcase that took up the entire wall to the right of the bed and then ran his finger across the spines of the books on the shelf at his eye level.

“What kind of demon would I be if I didn’t know a thing or two about souls and possession… If I read it last week it should still be on the shelf,” his eyes darted up as gold lettering shimmered in the light, “Yes!”

_Tha’s what yer lookin’ fer?_

He flipped through the unconvincingly fresh pages of the textbook and found the passage he’d tried to remember.

_‘Spected somethin’ more… ancient tome-y._

“Okay, any form – I remember that part- ah! Felt most between worlds – that’s important _but_ I’m looking for a liiisst- there. Most common,” his commentary degenerated into mumbles, “Right,” he snapped the book shut but gently rubbed the cover. Joey recognised the habit. The backs of his cards were worn from the same behaviour.

“Have you, maybe, heard any voices or seen any recurring images between worlds – because, there is a space between worlds, you’ll recognise it, you’ll keep going back there? But the point was to ask if you’ve seen something, even life-sized creatures, following you every night?”

Joey immediately recalled that thunderous growl that had rolled like doom in his ears every night since the first. He nodded grimly, then glanced at himself in a conveniently placed mirror and realised that the current world’s Joey just looked like he was intently talking to himself.

“I am,” his demon-self told the reflection.

“I _am_ you, Joey. And you are me. The only thing different about us are our,” his tail flicked, “circumstances.” He then stretched out a fist and gently tapped the mirror, his face relaxed into a familiar determined grin.

“I also happen to be able to read your mind and can’t believe that I could ever be such a coward. I’m sure we’ve both experienced much worse than a _menacing_ _voice_ ,” the mirror was reprimanded derisively.

 _Ya don’ understand,_ the reflected face shifted into an attentive expression, _in hindsight, yeah, ’sjus’ a voice, it can’t hurt me, but I hear it an’ I freeze up. Can’t help it._

The reflected face looked thoughtful for another second before tentatively offering, “It sounds like our anchor Jo,” he stepped back from fist-bumping the mirror, “There’s no real reason it couldn’t be menacing of course, and there’s a real chance that it _did_ put you on this trip, anchors usually do. Just try talking back to it, because the further you go between realities, the more stretched its link is going to become and evil intent or no, it’s still your only connection to home.”

Joey wandered over to his cup of coffee again and sipped in silence struggling with the idea of mentioning something. His demon-self had a much easier time guarding his thoughts than the other versions of himself.

_Ya know so much._

“Not really. I’ve never travelled through dimensions myself so this is all just speculation. The rules for the theory of dimension hopping may be completely different to plane travel, which is what I based my anchor theory on.”

_Yer really smart._

He chuckled, “Not really. It’s just hard _not_ to know things when you’ve lived two hundred years or so.” He followed this with a large gulp of coffee, “that and you caught me in the middle of researching running away.”

_We look nineteen._

His demon-self snorted into his coffee at the unexpected choice of comment.

“I do feed off the youth of humans.”

 _Dat makes sense_.

They sat in amiable silence for a few more moments, finishing the last of his mid-morning cup of coffee and eyeing the brightening sun.

_Runnin’ away from what?_

With a sigh and a motion of his tail that made human-Joey finally realise how awesome having a tail would be, demon-Joey set his empty mug down while he scrubbed his tired face.

“Would you believe dad’s pushing us into an arranged marriage?”

_… Guess there’s no point askin’ if the ol’ man’s sober._

Demon-Joey laughed through his fingers.

“He woke up from a stupor forty years ago to tell me it’s time I start acting like a prince and make myself a king.”

_Nyeh? Yer – I’m royalty?_

That gained another chuckle from Joey’s counterpart.

“No, its more like an achievement. Demons don’t have rulers, wouldn’t be very good representatives for chaos if we did.” With a sigh their body fell heavily into a soft, living room chair. “Though, you do have to be born a prince to become a king… think of it like being born a noble and then knighted.”

The confusion radiated inside their head like a halo of ignorance. This brought yet more tired laughter.

“Okay, let’s start with incubi and succubi, you understand what kind of demons we are right?”

_Yeah, sex demons?_

“Exactly,” he nodded to himself, “and if you remember that old legend my dad used to read to me when I was growing up, we have this whole convoluted backstory with crappy relationships, revenge sex and violence,” his hands gestured to thin air as he spoke, “you’ll remember that there used to be just nine of my kind, including Incu and Succub, after their ritual. These days though, we have numbers nearing a thousand. Can you figure how we managed that?”

… _Ya kept doin’ tha ritual?_

“No, actually, the book with the spell is locked in the library of eternal knowledge and the ritual has been performed only once since then, producing a miracle line, my line actually. But that’s not important, the point is we have kids, okay?”

 _I don’t see ya getting’ any closer to answerin’ mah question._ Demon-Joey could feel the other Joey squinting at him.

“I’m getting there!” he sank deeper into the chair. “So we have kids; but not just any incubus or succubus can manage the process. Basically the original nine were… fertile, in a sense. And from them only the first born son and daughter are fertile and so on.”

_Soo yer getting’ married ta a fertile succubus cos we’re dad’s first born son an’ you don’ wanna but ya can’ say no, why?_

“I _did_ say no. Forty years ago. But now it’s been forty years since the war. I’ve wasted forty years on the idea of love. All the succubi I’ve met and they’re nice enough but I don’t see myself loving them. And before you get mad at me for trying to run away because ‘ _I couldn’t find love’_ , I gave up on the idea weeks ago.”

Joey was solemn in their head, _I was_ gonna _say, sorry, dude… ‘stough bein’ a gay sex demon._

He barked with laughter at that and grinned to himself warmly.

His phone vibrated suddenly, on the distant kitchen counter, a name and picture flashed on the screen and as they approached it Incubus-Joey’s jaw tightened. Human-Joey recognised Yugi’s smile on the screen and couldn’t imagine why incubus Joey was so agitated about a call from one of their closest pals. Apprehension crept into their head as he considered the idea that, in this reality, he might be sleeping with Yugi too.

“Relax, I wouldn’t sleep with Yugi,” he picked up the phone and watched the call go by, “He’s like a brother to me. Plus he’s human.”

… _He know what we are?_

His body nodded, eyes fixed on his best friend’s smile.

The phone’s screen went dark.

_How is Yug’?_

“He finally asked Téa out, she said yes. They’re incredibly happy and disgustingly domestic.”

_‘Sthat why yer mad at ‘im?_

“I’m not- it’s- there’s just,” his jaw clenched so tightly Joey felt like their teeth were going to shatter, “all these people around me who can achieve happiness,” he gritted out. “She’s a childhood friend of Yugi’s. I don’t know her well but I know they're happy and I’m despicable because that makes me angry.”

He quickly refused to say any more on the subject and unlocked his phone, accessing his voicemail and listening to Yugi’s hurt voice with a guilty grimace.

“Hey there Jo. Umm, I heard that you were getting married... and that your wedding’s tomorrow... and that it’s to a woman named Mai and, well, this was going to be a call to ask why you didn’t tell me but halfway through this message I've kind of realised and now I want to tell you that if you need someone to talk to or something, you know where I live. You’ve been hanging out there since I was in high school so... just don’t bottle this up, kay?”

Joey relaxed his jaw and sighed heavily, dropping his head onto the cold counter.

The keys rattled as he swung them around his index finger. He tucked them into a jacket pocket as he trotted down the stairs from his home, looked left and right on the sidewalk and decided to turn left.

He strolled seemingly aimlessly but soon came to a café and, leaving the sweet tinkle that indicated a new customer to echo behind him, dropped himself into a seat. Scoping for prospective humans his eye snagged on a tall, handsome man in a business suit behind a laptop. His neatly combed back, ink black hair was coming loose here and there, a short lock resting on the frames of his spectacles. As he looked the man twisted his face in light irritation and took a sip of the coffee beside him, his small, pink tongue flicking at the corners of his mouth and circling his lips before disappearing back into its home to be replaced with the tips of four pearl-white teeth on his lower lip.

Joey realised he was staring. He was perfect. The fluttering cloth of a waitron’s apron walked past and the illusion was violently broken. He immediately made sure to avert his gaze while the moving body was still in front of him and his searching abruptly became more frantic as he began to gloss over anyone he could instantly classify as male.

Finally, he came across a woman in a dark red skirt and white blouse. She was obviously nearing forty but her face had an ageless beauty to it. She seemed tired in the way she swallowed her coffee like it was a bitter pill and stressed by the way she incessantly tapped the mug with her manicured nails.

She, he could stare at. His gaze turned a little bit unfocused a few seconds later, however, and he rubbed fatigued eyes. The stress of the marriage must have been getting to him. He resolved to up and eat now before his food ran away from him.

“I don’t mean to be cliché but,” he began once he’d reached her table; she looked up, “excuse me miss, I saw you from across the room.” He smiled charmingly and she reflexively chuckled. He noted the laptop and open coffee. Luckily for him the drink wasn’t piping hot or this would become too much of a scene. If he positioned his hand just right...

“So, what are you work-,” his hand moved at just the right angle to tip a quarter cup of warm coffee over the table and onto the beautiful meal he was prepping. “Oh god! I’m sorry.” He apologised lowly, trying not to make too much of a scene. He heard a few snickers at the handsome man who’d failed at a pick up. “I’m _really_ sorry, I didn’t mean to-,” he took advantage of her shock and, along with dabbing at her wet dress, lightly stroked the back of her leg.

She shivered slightly and he heard her heart beat a little louder. His fingertips traced over her knee and he left a lingering sensation as he stood. He smirked and dropped the damp brown blob made from trying to mop up the coffee on the table beside her laptop. He ran fingers over the top of the device, meeting her eyes, and slowly snapped it shut.

He gave a cocky smirk and drifted his other hand as an offering into her field of vision. “I do apologise; why don’t I get you home so you can get fixed up?”

Her eyes glazed over and she dumbly nodded. Mission accomplished, albeit a bit roughly, he gave her his jacket to try to hide the stain and walked her back to his apartment.

_This is what ya do? Pick up chicks in broad daylight?_

_I’m hungry, okay? I usually do this at night but I skipped dinner yesterday because Duke and Tristan came to visit._

_Ya mean because ya called an’ asked ‘em ta visit._

_I don’t remember becoming my mother._

_Ha ha. Why didn’ ya take dat guy in da business suit? We really wan’ed him._

_The timing of your ‘we’s’ is beginning to sound strange you know?_

_I asked ya a question._

He rammed the keys into the lock a little harder than necessary and yanked open his front door.

 _Are you really complaining? Aren’t you the me that's_ not _gay?_

 _I jus’ mean ya had this whole last day on Earth mood this mornin’, lockin’ me away in yer head so ya could be the middle meat in a dick sandwich-_ that comment earned a burst of laughter but Joey charged on. _An’ now yer pickin’ up some random woman offa da street when ya had a perfectly good stick o’ man-meat in a suit who was just our- uh, yer type!_

“Do you have any idea what you just said to me?” Demon-Joey managed through his fit.

_Jus’ because it’s awkward, doesn’ mean ‘snot true._

Still chuckling, demon-Joey gently placed the dazed woman on his bed and turned slightly away to keep talking to himself.

“You’re right,” he nodded smugly, “we did have a kinky gay threesome this morning-.”

- _I’m so sorry I brought it up._

“So this is my gift to you,” he spread his arms in a casually magnanimous gesture, “like you said, I locked you away this morning so I could enjoy myself so, as an apology, I went out of my way to find something you’d be happy with.”

Incubus-Joey approached the woman and gently cupped her soft cheek before leaving their body in Human-Joey’s hands.

She was indeed beautiful. Joey couldn’t help flushing at the idea of doing _that_ and yet something was… off.

He didn’t know her, not even her name, and it disturbed him how obedient she was. He recalled the remnants of his previous self’s memories and remembered that Téa had been subservient but not obedient.

His hand trailed her smooth skin, pressing ever so lightly into her flesh, and he found it too soft. It was too easy to indent her. Her limbs were somehow too slim. The curve from her waist to her thigh was perfunctory but she, as a whole, was too small. Every part of her was too soft, like sponge, and she behaved like a porcelain puppet so he felt like he was caressing a blow up doll.

He stopped touching after a while. It was no use. He couldn’t find her attractive beyond her face, everything else turned him off. He called to his demon-self, who seemed to be doing the equivalent of reading a magazine in his mind, and haltingly explained to him the problem.

Joey stood, half-naked, hand on his chin, and talked to himself aloud again. Their victim wandering around in the background like a curious puppy.

“You really feel that way? She’s ‘ _too_ _soft’_?”

_’Sweird. I’ve never really noticed it before but girls are really soft. This is da first time I've ever realised it an’ da first I haven’t liked it._

“It _is_ weird...” Demon-Joey's thumb was on his chin, the dangerous tip of his nail pressing into his lower lip, and the thoughts came quick and in a confusing flurry of dreadful dawning certainty.

“Are you assimilating...?” he was afraid to conclude.

“Because, if you're becoming more like me the longer we stay us... and if you do this in _every_ reality... there’s a very real possibility that you could lose your identity Joey.”

_Whaddaya mean? We’re us, right? Why does it matter if I’m becomin’ more like you?_

“Because I’m not _really_ you.”

_... now yer not makin’ any sense._

Joey pressed his thumb between his brows, his fingers fanned out from his forehead, and closed his eyes, trying to get his words in order.

“Yes we, all of the Joeys, are us but, we live in different worlds for a reason. There’s a characteristic that sets each one apart. We are both the entity that is ‘ _Joey’_ but under different conditions our appearance and a small portion of our behaviour must change to accommodate the landscape.”

 _So…_ this time Joey instantly understood but wanted to talk through the growing fear that came with the realisation. _Yer basically sayin’ that yer me but...yer not me._

“Yes.”

_An’ if I keep on meetin’ other ‘me’s I’ll lose... me?_

He nodded expressively and drew the attention of the doll woman to them, her delicate hands tracing his skin like a voyager does a map.

“In any case, we alone can’t do anything. You need to break that barrier of fear and talk to that voice because we don’t know how long your sense of self will hold out.” He lightly grasped the woman’s trailing hands as they began to travel low on his body and brought them to his chest.

“I’m afraid I’ll really have to feed though.” He explained as he brought the female’s hands to his lips and kissed them. He led her over to the bed again and she sat like a duchess being tended to by her servant. He slid onto the bed and hovered above her sculpted form. Running the back of his fingers across her skin, in carnal rapture, from her neck to her thigh, he watched her shiver in unbearable anticipation.

 _Man’s gotta eat..._ Joey replied absently.


	7. Wanting What You Don't Want and Having Who You Can't Have

He dabbed at his face with a fluffy green towel and stared at the exhausted woman sleeping soundly on his bed. He’d normally leave them there until morning and make them find their own way home but he was feeling a little sympathetic at the moment and figured he’d try his hand at being a gentleman in real life, not just to pick up girls. Sighing, he finished drying off and got himself and the woman ready to leave.

He was glad that the scent of her was distinct. A foreign perfume perhaps. Once out of his door he wriggled his nose, took a tentative sniff and began to walk.

The curves of her form settled into his arms and her face unconsciously nuzzled his neck. His heart fluttered a little at the sensation and he smiled as he walked down the street. This beautiful, nameless woman had charmed him today for some reason. As he squeezed her even tighter to his chest he hoped that Mai could do the same. That she could charm him and he could fall in love with her and they could be happy because this was his last night as a free man and he desperately wished marriage wasn’t as depressing as he felt at that moment.

 _Hey, I **know** Mai, _Joey the joy-rider interjected _, Y’ll love her! She’s beautiful an’ strong an’ a li’l flirty but dat's in yer guys’ job description isn’t it?_

His smile widened and he nodded, the woman’s freed pitch black hair tickling his neck when he did.

“I’m sure she is all that... and more. But she’s not a man.”

They passed a lingering smell of coffee from the closing coffee shop Joey had found the woman in this morning. The familiar bell tinkled behind them and the warm light haloed the man and dazed woman in his arms as they passed.

It took a few moments for Joey to be aware of a gravelly voice dimly calling a name.

“...n...! Vivian!” it yelled and Joey glanced back in utter horror. Was that her boyfriend? Oh, he’d picked the _wrong_ time to be gentlemanly.

The approaching man wore a trench coat that billowed dramatically as he jogged up to them and an intense sense of dread weighed down Joey’s arms as he felt something bad coming. The brunet came to a stop before the demon in a rush of wind, his unsettled locks somehow settling perfectly back into place once he had. He was panting lightly but looked down on Joey and the woman in his arms with clear superiority and not just a _hint_ of accusation.

His blue eyes were like chips of ice as he crossed his arms and cross-examined the blond just below his nose.

“Who are you? Why are you carrying Mrs Wong?”

 _Mrs_? That's it. He had to move. The next country over might be kind to him.

“Mrs Wong fainted,” he fabricated hesitantly, “near my house and I tried to,” the lie wasn’t coming to him easily for some reason; he felt his eyes begin to dart around nervously but forced them to levelly meet the taller man’s cold orbs, “wake her up. But I couldn’t so I brought her inside and took care of her there until she did,” he almost sighed as he finally got the flow of the untruth.

“She told me her address before she left for home but I was worried and followed her and as you can see, she’s still not completely well.” He gestured with Mrs Wong’s body; desperately hoping the handsome man was attributing his pauses to intimidation. He looked like someone people frequently cowered before.

“Why couldn’t you take her to a hospital?”

“My house was closer.”

“Why did you follow her?”

“I’m not a stalker if that's what you mean.’ Joey put a little indignance into his voice.

“You should know that she’s married.”

“You should know that I’m gay.” He turned and started to follow Mrs Wong’s scent home again. “Now if you're quite done with your interrogation, I want to see the woman I spent my afternoon making sure was alive home now,” he shot over his shoulder. It took a few seconds but he heard footsteps behind him.

“I have every right to question scruffy strangers carrying unconscious women around after sunset. Especially women who have been missing since this afternoon.”

 _Scruffy_? He resisted the urge to check his outfit, just barely. And this man really did know the woman then. But by the way he spoke they didn’t seem to be much more than acquaintances.

“Why are you following me, Mr tall, dark and snippy?”

“Follow-up investigation.”

Joey snorted as they turned a corner side by side; “Well, it’s a displeasure meeting you, Detective...?”

“I’m not a detective, just a concerned co-worker.”

“You _look_ like a run-of the mill office man.” He commented with a derisive over-the-shoulder glance at the man’s well-fitted business suit. “Which office?”

“And I would tell a suspicious stranger something like that... why?”

“This coming from the nameless man in a trench coat.”

Preoccupied by their banter the door was before them before either man knew it and Joey was about ready to drop the dead weight and scram before things got too heavy for him to handle.

“Oh, the door’s open.” Mr Nameless said, reached over and pushed both him and the door into the entranceway. “Her bedroom is down the hall and the third door on the right.” The man instructed as he stalked into the living room.

“Right.” Joey reluctantly acquiesced and tried to remember where the handsome businessman had said Vivian’s bedroom was over the constant yelling the reality hopping Joey was performing.

 _It’s a trap! We should be gone! Should have **been** gone! We shoulda dumped her body in his arms when he first came callin’! **Whadja keep on walkin’ for**_? _He’s gonna interrogate the balls offa ya, the bastard!_

_Do you know him from your realm? You don’t seem to like him much._

_Definitely not! Well... lately..._

Joey thought of Christmas Kaiba and Secretary Kaiba and felt a bit conflicted but shook his head as they laid Vivian Wong gently atop her bed and stepped back. Joey, the incubus, turned and walked back to the entrance to find the door closed, probably locked too, and his new ‘friend’ in an armchair on the opposite side of the room, his top button undone, tie loosened, coat discarded and a glass of wine in hand.

He somehow reminded the blond of a mafia boss.

“Shall we discuss matters further Mr...?”

“Wheeler.” He finally introduced reluctantly, “but call me Joey.”

He gracelessly dropped into another armchair, rested his cheek lazily on his right hand’s fingers and smirked wolfishly.

“... you’re actually the Chief Executive Officer of Kaiba Corp and have been lyin’ ta little ol’ me? For shame Mister Kaiba.” Joey’s words were slurring, just a bit. And he wouldn’t admit that he was swaying, more to the right than to the left because on his right was tall, cool albeit egotistical Seto Kaiba. The taller man was providing Joey with some much-needed support and kept glancing back, guiltily, at the wine bottles they’d left empty. He’d have to pay Vivian back for those later.

Neither of them could understand it. Both had gone into their conversation expecting an inquisition and were somehow leaving it like old friends out of a bar. They stumbled to the front door and Seto unlocked it over Joey’s shoulder, trapping him between it and the other man’s taller frame. Joey went stiff, nervously squirming occasionally; half-assedly trying to escape while Seto fumbled in the dark.

The door swung soundlessly, bashing into the teetering pair. Joey landed in Seto’s lap and let his head tilt lazily back to check on the businessman. Seto was winded but chuckled good-humouredly and met the enquiring demon’s gaze with a surprisingly warm blue-eyed smile. His head drifted forward unsteadily as Joey’s turned quickly and their faces met, lips just missing each other at first but quickly finding and melting together.

Joey expertly turned himself around and climbed atop the taller man. He deepened the kiss and blindly managed to straddle Seto beneath him. A hunger roared throughout his veins as heat from their respective bodies rose up to meet each other. Seto slipped Joey’s jacket off his shoulders and deftly slipped his fingers under the simple tee clinging to the blond’s form. Joey moaned and ground his hips down. Seto gasped. In a rush of passion he’d pressed Joey into the wall beside them. With his back to the wall and his legs still around Seto’s hips Joey found himself literally caught between rock and a hard place.

The sensation was enough to make him gasp and grab at the other man’s loosened tie. It slipped even looser in his grip but Seto got the message and leaned back into another ravenous kiss.

Joey let his hands roam, the heat fogging his mind and drowning the other Joey’s voice out. The hunger was intense, almost as overwhelming as the first time he’d felt it decades ago. He felt fabric tear under his fingers and was vaguely aware of irreparably destroying the other man’s shirt. Struggling to keep himself under control he lifted his hands to soft brown locks he could feel tickling his forehead.

­ _Gently, gently_ … was his mantra as he ran his fingers through the other’s hair.

“You’re rough,” Seto’s gruff murmur broke his concentration and his fangs extended on reflex and broke through skin. They scraped the smooth expanse of brown stretched over Seto’s chin on their way to his alluringly bare neck.

Seto didn’t make a sound as Joey’s fangs sank in but Joey knew it was painful. This human wasn’t prepared and numbed by a spell. This man was fully aware of the sensation of his neck being pierced and spouting blood. But Joey was in too deep. He could taste a strong soul, a repressed sexual energy. Thick and heady and intoxicating.

He removed his fangs and travelled down. He bit just above the collar bone, on the chest, above the nipple, the sternum. His tongue travelled ahead of his bites, searching out the next well-spring of energy as a groan and a vague mumbling knocked at the edge of his senses.

“Joey...?” he heard fuzzily through kisses. “What are you...? Urgh! Ah! A wild beast? Get...off! ...Stop...! Ouch...!”

And just like that he shut his eyes.

He closed his mouth and ran his tongue around it, tasting and swallowing the tang of another’s blood mixed with his saliva. He breathed out and opened his eyes again but he didn’t want to see lips that he knew were bloody and a gaze that he knew was fiery like dry ice. He wriggled away, stood, staggered the first few steps, but ran blindly through the darkness with deaf ears and bloody hands.

_Told ya it was a trap..._

“ _Don’t_! You – just shut up!” he howled his rage to his apartment; his rage and his total despair and his tiny, abused flare of hope. He hurled his emotions around him, books and tables and glass for that satisfying crunch, until he’d sunk to his knees, a self-deprecating mess, and punched the floor. The polished wood beneath him crunched at the pressure of his fist.

“And I was so damn close too…” he muttered to the spider-webbed wood. “So goddamn close to that life that I convinced myself I was okay with. I should have known, should have seen it _coming_ , it should have been obvious when I woke up this morning with another me in my head…” he put both of his hands over said head as if to hide from the world.

From inside their head Joey would have been puzzled and taken aback by his current incarnation’s passionate behaviour if he couldn’t feel the abrupt and all-consuming panic beginning to take both of them over. He felt, through their forged connection, that his chance encounter with this single human man was going to bring his world crashing down.

His options flashed, unbidden, through his rocking head. He immediately saw a future with the bloodied corpse of Kaiba, the unblemished cadaver of the businessman, the absence of his presence in a room that reeked of him. He saw his father’s rage, disappointment and, worst of all, his grief. He saw married life with a woman whose beauty he could never fully appreciate and the recurrence of this pain, this yearning for something else whilst knowing it would only bring tenfold the pain of not having it.

“I hope Set- that CEO guy just forgets me, and soon…” he felt on the verge of sobbing.

His door clicked open, followed by a sound like doom walking in. He whipped around; expecting outrageously bad results from that noise. His disgruntled expression slackened in surprise.

“Aren’t you…?”

“Mai Valentine,” the busty blond drawled as she tapped a few more feet into his home, “bride-to-be and already regretting the decision.” She beamed down at him and stretched out a gloved hand.

He felt no shame as he let his tears flow and ignored the hand in favour of launching himself at the older woman. She stumbled back and warned against him getting blood on her blouse but let herself be hugged.

“You’re too damn young for this,” she said to herself as she closed the door behind her and carried him in her arms to his bed. She gently set him down and sat beside him, her arms inviting him back into her hold.

“But war always asks too much of the young,” she murmured to him as he cried himself to sleep.

Joey wasn’t himself and yet he was.

He was in a nightmare that was somehow not his.

And he was hearing sounds that he seemed to love and noises that terrified him.

**“Ah… ah hahh... hahh... hahh J-ahh nnn-!”**

It was coming from behind him but he refused to turn around. He didn’t want to see it. He knew, without a single doubt, what was happening. He could almost tell where this was going.

The gasps turned from something lewd to something disturbing.

His hands twitched but they wouldn’t move to cover his ears.

**“Ah-! AH! ... S-sto-urgh! ... Sto– Jo- plea- ea- s…”**

**“I was one of the lucky ones boy,”** was that his dad’s voice? **“When she ran, I let her go. Because they always do. You never think they will but they do. And not every one of us can let them but I did. You know why, Jo?”** his father put the beer bottle between his canines. There was an intolerable squeal from the glass.

 **“I did it because, more than loving her, I loved you and your sister. I wanted you to have your mother… alive at least.”** The squealing followed the grooves in the bottle’s glass skin.

 **“For that, you kids had to live without your father for a while and I am sorry.”** His teeth were boring holes into the opaque glass.

**“But this is more warning than apology, boy. Don’t do what I did Jo. Don’t go through that pain. I don’t want that for you.”**

**“You can love _anyone_ , anything but a human.”** The bottle’s neck snapped.

**“Ah aH AAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHH….!”**


	8. That Feeling When You're Just a Feeling

For someone just out of a nightmare Joey felt strangely refreshed.

His eyes drifted open and blinked to focus. He saw blonde hair, brighter and longer than his own but familiar. Mai was still with him. He had to thank her for last night, for calming his incubus-self down and staying by their side as they slept. He smiled and opened his mouth and-… yawned.

That was weird. Especially because he _had_ felt some sort of expression leave from him. It was meant to be Mai’s name but had come out like a hum. He tried to make his body lift a hand or leg or twitch but nothing responded. A quaking terror came over him.

_Am I paralysed?_

Panicked, he was caught off guard by the absence of a frantically beating heart. He reached with his senses and found _a_ heart, but it was detached from him. Like the rest of the body he had no control of it. This was different to being tucked away in a box in his own mind.

He felt like he was oozing something. A gas. Or an aura. His body looked down at itself, breaking through Joey’s horror. He metaphorically breathed a sigh of relief. Not paralysed then.

His body slipped off the bed and Joey felt himself bob and bounce with the movement. As his body padded to the bathroom Joey felt as though he was on a boat. He felt swept about by invisible waves with every resounding footstep, cushioned though they were by the carpet. Thoroughly confused and quickly beginning to bounce out of control he was startled by an ethereal but steadying nudge.

He wasn’t alone in this head?

The door frame loomed close and his head ducked under it casually. Joey was no shorty (he would vehemently insist), but he’d never had to duck under a door before. The first thing he looked for in the vast and glimmering bathroom was a mirror; it may have just been his imagination but his skin tone had also seemed to be different during that glance at himself earlier. Among _other_ things.

Maybe he’d just come to a reality where he was a teenager again.

He caught sight of pitch-black hair and amber eyes.

Or not.

He would have widened his eyes in shock if he had any control over this strange man, whose nose was larger than Joey was used to. This man’s lips were thinner and even his eyes were shaped differently. This wasn’t even close to his face! How was this man him?

“Theo?” he heard a sleepy, seductive voice murmur as he felt arms slip over him like vines, each painted fingertip little blooming flowers on his chest. He began to smile lovingly but something strange happened again.

**It’s no use…**

Joey felt himself… speak?

The sound of the voice was familiar but the words resounded and whispered and scuttled all around him. Like a living thing the phrase multiplied and grew and settled in the strange man’s headspace.

The man, Theo, was happy in Mai’s embrace. Joey could sense it in that distant way he was slowly getting used to. But he didn’t let himself enjoy the feeling. He shrugged off Mai’s gentle grip, disguising the move as a motion to grab his toothbrush. The sight of it right beside Mai’s filled Theo with fear. Joey felt it as a lurch in the invisible sea all around him. A scuttling glow flashed past his senses like a spider. He really wasn’t alone in this head. Theo took a breath and the fear was pressed down along with Joey, squashing him under a bubble of forced calm.

“You’re up,” Theo managed with his new resolve. He glanced over at her, still naked and dazed from sleep. She was so beauti-

 **It’s no use…** Joey felt himself interrupt and the fear swelled back up against the bubble of calm. He sensed that black glow wriggle beside him.

Theo fought back by setting the world record for fastest toothpaste to toothbrush application and shoving the plastic stick into his mouth. Mai stretched languidly just behind him. Theo watched her shiver, put on an annoyed expression, and grab the silk gown hanging nearby. He smiled around his foamy toothbrush as she tied the robe around herself and hugged the soft material.

“Not the warmest of gowns,” she remarked and Theo choked out a chuckle. At the noise she met his amber eyes in the mirror and stuck her tongue out.

“Were you going to take a shower?” she asked when she’d cleared the fog of sleep from her mind.

“Yeah.” He rinsed his mouth and dabbed it dry on a nearby soft towel without looking at her before he strode toward the patterned-glass cubicle and stood underneath the showerhead.

“Want company?” she called after him but he didn’t bother to look. He knew that, if he did, he wouldn’t be able to deny her.

“No.” He told her and let the spray of water envelop him.

 _There's no such thing as love. There's no such thing as love_ , he chanted to himself in a murmur just under the sound of water splashing on the tiles.

Joey was confused. He knew with some level of certainty that Theo wasn’t an incarnation of him. The guy was not only unrecognisable physically but also lacked any sort of mental connection that Joey could usually use to communicate with his hosts. Needless to say, this was still not home.

And yet, if he wasn’t inhabiting Theo; who, or what, _was_ he inhabiting?

Just then he glimpsed a light, an exit, or an entrance. Another glowing thing drifted towards him. It was orange. It flickered. It floated nonchalantly passed him and down somehow, disappearing into the wavy darkness that surrounded Joey.

He glanced back at the entrance to watch it close and once it did he could see through Theo’s eyes again. What the fuck was going on?

When Theo exited shower he traipsed back into the room with an aura like death over his head and a ball of inexplicable rage in his chest. He stomped into his underwear and pants and glanced over at Mai, hoping to find a reason to argue with her. His eyes caught on something so petty but so perfect for venting his rage.

“I told you to stop smoking my cigs, it bugs me,” Mai glanced back at him, white smoke seeping out of her pink mouth.

“Sorry,” she said nonchalantly.

“Don’t say sorry, listen to me when I talk.” His voice was rising slightly now.

“I _do_ listen,” Mai’s tone was vaguely annoyed.

“No you don’t, you just sit there and _insist_ that you do like the deaf, uncaring bitch you are,” He insisted.

“What the fuck Theo? It’s just one cigarette! You could afford to buy the goddamn company with what you earn.”

“And I guess that’s why you're with me, isn’t it?” _Just like all the rest..._

**It’s no use…**

He grabbed the rest of his clothes and began to storm out of the room. Mai put out the cigarette she was holding and stalked after him.

“What? You think I’m after your money? That’s ridiculous; I get by just fine by myself. I don’t need your cash and I’m not your _whore_!”

He whipped around and grabbed at her wrist. “Really? ‘Cause you could have fooled me, running around like that.” He eyed her again, going over the gown she’d loosely strapped around her voluptuous body and throwing her hand back to her. Her teeth were clenched behind her lips and she touched the wrist he’d grabbed carefully.

“You know what? Since you're so upset about being my whore why don’t you stop being my anything?” he said over his shoulder. She was just like all the rest anyway and in a moment she’d prove it by begging for him to stay.

“Is that supposed to be a break up line?” she sneered at his bare back. “You’re going to break up with me over cigarettes? Fine. Take your mood swings and go Theo.” She spoke calmly and with a deep hint of derision but he’d turned back to her just in time to see tears in her eyes as she stormed back into the bedroom and slammed the door shut.

“Shit!” he spat. That argument had only served to make him angrier, it seemed.

 **It’s no use…** There it was again. Joey’s voice repeating that hopeless phrase again. He wish he could hear himself say something else, that line was too depressing.

Just as Joey resigned himself to staying in this guy, and apparently encouraging him to be a dick for the rest of the day, that entrance flashed open again. Theo breathed in and a pair of fluffy lights drifted in. One, a shade of sparkling pinks and purples and the other a darker purple with streaks of shadowy black.

And, just like that, he drifted out.

He gently detached from what appeared to be his host but it took him a few more minutes to figure out that he was _not_ Theo the verbally and emotionally abusive boyfriend of Mai Valentine. He looked down at himself again and saw a brown and green whirlwind ball of particles. So he was like those other things. Like the black scuttley thing and the orange flickery thing.

Once again, he wasn’t human.

Don’t get him wrong, he looked… cool; he just, wasn’t expecting to be the ghost of a dust-ball.

Looking back with eyes that weren’t there he caught the tail-end of the dust-ball spectres that had entered Theo in his place. One of them kind of reminded him of Yugi. It was a swirling mass of twinkling amethyst fading to sunshine yellow through a rich pink that slipped into the man’s mouth through the sigh on which Joey had escaped.

 **Not Yugi.** He heard his own voice say something else finally. **Hope.**

‘Fuck. We can talk ta each other?’

**It seems.**

The dust-ball version of him still seemed weird. Unlike Joey, it didn’t talk much. And it had an almost melancholy tone.

**Despair.**

Joey hoped the maximum word count per sentence of this thing wasn’t three because he was not good at extrapolating meaning and all that junk in high school English. He thought a bit though. He could try. He was, like, super well read as a sex demon, right? He could figure this out.

‘Hope, Despair… those’re emotions, right? That what you are?’

Quiet. But it was somehow affirmative. Maybe.

‘Fuck!’ If Joey had hair he would ruffle it in frustration. Now he had to extrapolate from silence?

‘Okay, whatevuh. Le’s assume I’m right, y’re all emotions. My- our name is Despair, dat one who looked like Yugi ta me is called Hope?’ He paused in the hope of confirmation.

**… yes.**

Joey could cry from relief. He wasn’t built for this stuff.

‘Den what about the darker purple one? Wha’s that one’s name?’

**Regret.**

‘An’ the orange one?’

**Anger.**

‘Then… the black one could be-,’ they spoke simultaneously.

**Fear.**

If Joey still had a body he would have shivered. He hoped he would be back in a human shape soon. Being formless was weird.

He quickly put that behind him, however, and in his body-of-sorts floated on air currents; much like dust did. His new form drifted between the cracks under doors and over tall, tall buildings. They were in a city, had just come from a penthouse suite, and were now sweeping past dirty streets and graffitied walls.

Joey had the view of a human being but also seemed able to see events impossibly far away and from incredibly high distances and on a wide range. He felt all-seeing when he played with this function of his form until his current self silently but somehow irately pulled his vision into one spectrum and scoped the area.

Being able to see from what felt like anywhere in the world had nothing on what dust-ball Joey, Despair, then did. In a flash of darkness, that Joey would call a blink if this body had the eyelids to do so, the world both brightened and darkened. He felt sick. One could say his spectrum widened. He saw colours he couldn’t imagine and shades he couldn’t fathom, the shock of it stabbing him in the temples he’d have if he were human but dust-spectre Joey was remorseless and seemed to be using the pain as payback for messing with their sight. He endured, but not for long, unable to control his own senses.

_Okay, okay! ‘M sorry! Didn’t know it would get on yer nerves so bad._

His reply was the abrupt return to his normal colour vision which instantly felt dull and inadequate in light of what he’d just seen.

His little dust body skittered and fluttered in the air and he sensed that it needed to move quickly but didn’t know where to go. It abruptly came to a decision and halted in mid-air. The edges of his vision began to simultaneously lighten and darken again, he imagined having a throat and feeling it constrict, he broke into a mental sweat.

The encroaching widening of vision didn’t slow down but it didn’t speed up either. Considerately and carefully Despair expanded their joint perception until they could see colours he hadn’t ever imagined; colours he still couldn’t really conceive of. And his current reality’s body zoomed in on one of these and flitted to it so quickly Joey actually thought they’d teleported there.

Their next host was someone he recognised again. At first he thought it was Marik but, though his hair was the same dusty blond, it spiked up in all different directions and his face was too harsh to be that of the pretty boy Joey remembered from Kaiba’s duel blimp. If anything, he looked like Marik from when he went insane toward the end of that blimp’s travel.

Except there was a complete lack of derision in the boy’s dark lavender eyes, only tears. Tears that fell on a boy that _did_ look like Marik. A paler, quieter, and quite dead replica.

Those were the last thoughts he had as a mere observer of the situation. The larger man breathed and he felt his dust-body get sucked in. **It’s no use…** his signature phrase resounded around the new head space and Joey watched the tears he’d noticed earlier finally fall on Marik’s corpse.

“You didn’t deserve this,” the gruff voice broke in places as he whined over his brother’s body. “You didn’t do a damn thing wrong in this life. You haven’t hurt a single person. You didn’t deserve to die this way.”

Joey, as an observer within an observer saw that this wasn’t completely true. Indications of Marik manipulating people and consorting with gang members ran like a short film in what he couldn’t classify as a head anymore. Still, for all he’d done as a kid growing up on the street, he didn’t deserve a death like the one he’d gotten, beaten and stabbed and left to bleed out in the gutter. Not even killed for his own crimes but for his elder brother’s.

Said elder brother wailed and thrashed within his own mind but now only bent in silent anguish over the sunlit face of his younger brother. The blood still shimmered just slightly in the glow; unlike his hair, which returned the beams of light to the sky full-throttle, like an angel, disappearing from his sight.

“No,” he began to mutter.

“No, Marik didn’t- he didn’t deserve this death.”

He dug a numb finger into an open wound. The blood came out sluggish and coated his thumb with some rusty, congealed colour. His hand seized and his thumb pressed in deeper, jolting the smaller man’s body into a semblance of life.

Marik would be swearing at him right now. Or crying for help. He didn’t know. He’d never seen his brother like this.

“It’s all my fault- all, my fault that harm would ever come to you,” he caressed a bloody cheek, “brother, my little brother.”

He slipped his bloodied thumb out of its flesh sheath and smoothed the fluid between his brother’s jagged skin and even more jagged shirt. The cotton was hard with dried blood.

“ _I_ deserve- yes, I deserve it. Punishment. I failed. Oh, brother. Marik, _Marik,”_ he crooned, “I deserve to be punished _severely_ for failing in my duty- protect. I should have protected you,” he sobbed, “my duty to protect my sibling.” He picked Marik’s bloody, limp body up and hugged it gently.

“I won’t mind. I wouldn’t mind it, I deserve- it. I wouldn’t mind stealing a motorbike and driving off a cliff and I’ll do just that, Marik, because I’m sorry and I deserve- _deserve_ it. To be _punished_!” his gruff voice warped into something between a deranged growl and a roar. “But,” he glanced down at his brother’s face, tears splattered across it, “but brother, brother please,” he brushed a glinting lock away, “not just me. There- there are people who deserve to be punished more, more than me. For now. More than I do. More. For now. And then- then I’ll-,”

**It’s no use…**

The gruff Marik laughed, unhinged, and buried his face in his brother’s chest. It may have been his imagination but it already smelled like corpse.

“You’re right, yes, you’re right brother,” the sound came out muffled, “I don’t deserve life. I’ll do it. I deserve- deserve it. Me. After them. After them.”

He would maim them. Make them ten times as hideous as their own souls. A dozen slashes for every one of Marik’s scratches, a finger ripped off for every one of his dear brother’s knife wounds, a hundred punches for every bruise on his pretty sibling’s face and if they still weren’t dead he’d push them off the cliff before following them down.

Or maybe not. He shouldn’t die in the same place as the filth that had murdered his brother. Maybe, maybe he could hang himself in their makeshift home with Marik in the seat beside his, waiting for his brother to join him. Or he could chain himself and his brother to the heaviest boulder he could find and roll them into a river or something, Marik had always loved the sea.

Oh, he had too many options for him to choose now, he would have to kill those bastards first and then decide. His eyelids were drooping from the strain of squinting and focusing and crying.

Temporarily then, he would follow Marik to a world away from this painful reality, then he’d get up tomorrow morning, hunt those fuckers down and choose a way to die, choose a path to reach his brother and stay permanently. They were all they’d had since Ishizu had been adopted and their father had abandoned them; and they’d be together forever.

When Joey exited on a sigh this time, it was a sigh of deep sleep… and no other dust-spectre replaced him.

He remembered his own Marik. Vaguely. They were older now and Marik was better. His sister had been having him treated in some sort of special hospital after Battle City. But he was around now if Joey could recall. His memory was unbearably fuzzy, fizzing away as he tried to retrieve it. He got something about a museum and Kaiba Corp and then it was away and he forgot what he was trying to remember.

 **You’re dying.** He heard himself say.

He would have swallowed and sweated if he could. He knew not to ask any more of that simple statement from Despair; his Incubus self had said something similar. ‘Assimilating’, was it?

He knew what it really was.

He was slowly losing himself.

Despite the sudden occurrence of absentmindedness, Joey could still look down and feel a lurch of sympathy for the pair of brothers. Despair may have been his current host’s name but it certainly didn’t feel the way he did about the situation so Joey was alone in his melancholy.

Zooming out to an eagle eye scope, Joey felt better accustomed to the change in view this time and could almost put names to the new colours he could perceive. His dust-ball host seemed to be listening to his chattering about new colours and possible names so they lingered in their sky-view long enough for Joey to register that he could see all the other little dust-balls like himself. He saw the one that reminded him of Yugi flit leisurely to another human host and a gorgeous, pure white one. It looked like a snowball with each snowflake ever so slightly separated from the other, enough so you could just see the spaces in between them. It sparkled just like Yugi. He missed his best friend.

 **Peace.** Despair labelled in Joey’s voice before he could ask the question.

The experience was like watching a swarm of invisible clouds go about their business. If clouds could fit into the palm of your hand and were extravagantly coloured beyond the scope of even a rainbow of course. Despair found a silent method of teaching him more about the sentient clouds. Through a kind of psychic link, they exchanged different understandings and interpretations. They weren’t words, but Joey had never felt more like he understood someone before.

The ‘dust-spirits’, or Emotions as Joey had tagged them as earlier, were impartial regulators of what would be called good and evil. Joey’s incarnation, Despair, was the counter balance to Hope. If a human generated a level of optimism irregular for who they were, a regulator would arrive to balance that emotion back toward the expected level.

That made them a bad spirit in Joey’s opinion. They’d driven a man to abuse and another to a murder spree and then death. They were clearly agents of evil.

**No. Good.**

Joey was incredulous. And kind of mad.

Despair struggled to explain that its kind existed to incite battles within humans, give their positive feelings meaning by allowing them to fight for them. They drifted above a hospital and Joey saw flares of light to combat the dust-balls, the little fluffy spirits forcefully expelled. Some swelled within a human and almost blocked out the entire person with its glow.

Some win, some lose, some don’t know how to fight. One didn’t choose which regulator one was. That was all picked before Emergence. When asked what they were really called Joey found that their ‘race’ had no one to name them. At least this supernatural host was happy to explain the world to him.

Something about Despair’s explanation bothered him but he pushed it to the back of his mind.

The sun had climbed to its peak and Despair seemed to be enjoying the same view as Joey when they caught a glimpse of an available host. The tall man drove a generic black car on the main highway and Despair floated near his window to get a glimpse of him.

Examining his profile through the dark screen brought Joey to the conclusion that his appearance was quite striking. Joey was sure the man’s hair reached his hips even tied high on his head and it was dyed a somehow tasteful and suitable cloudy blue. Joey didn’t know how the man managed to pull it off but the colour did remind him of someone…

Floating casually around the man’s windshield at a speed just slightly faster than the car’s brought into sight the stranger’s contrasting eye colour and Joey abruptly remembered where he’d last seen him.

Dartz looked somewhat haunted. Like he would have probably looked during the time he was collecting souls to feed a lethal legendary beast if he’d been in full possession of his mental faculties. He had dark circles under both his clear blue and yellow topaz eye and blinked often. His mouth was drawn into a thin, dry line and his grip on the steering wheel was turning his knuckles white.

At this rate he’d collide with another car before they got to him, Joey fretted. But the drive was safe; and when the car finally stopped in front of a decrepit building Joey’s dust-ball body swirled in relief for a moment. It may have taken a while to reach their destination but at least they had access to the man’s face and could easily slip in. That was, if the man ever opened his mouth.

Jeez, did this guy even breathe? It wasn’t enough he had to look like the walking dead, he had to damn near bring himself to death’s door too.

‘Breathe, damn you!’

The stairs were what got to him. Or maybe his natural instinct to survive kept him from holding his breath to death because he collapsed halfway up the dusty staircase; the case he’d been cradling with shaking hands, like a delusional mother held her dead baby, discarded on a lower step. His skittish eyes were hidden by his bruise-coloured eyelids and his right hand was wrapped around his throat but not constricting its gasping; the motions an invitation to Joey and allowing him to settle into his third host of the day.

Once in his comfortable position of backseat driver he let the man’s hyperventilating even itself out. This frequently occurred, especially lately, Despair informed him; and it had made a habit to arrive early so that the man could gather himself.

So regulators had regulars. But what positive emotion did Dartz have? There wasn’t a shred of optimism around.

When Dartz’ breathing fell silent he soundlessly stood and observed his surroundings with eyes much less frantic but no less dead; surefootedly stalking over to where his case had bounded into an unfortunately frail area of the stairs and lodged itself within the very hole it had created. It didn’t take him long to wrench it out and dust it off with steady hands, scowling at the coat of dust on it.

Of course it had to be the abandoned building. If you wanted to be cliché and obvious this was definitely the place to be. But his client seemed to want it that way and he was getting paid extra so he wouldn’t dispute over locations. Even though he could make the same shot from every other building surrounding the target, lord knew enough guards had been paid off.

He reached his room number and settled carefully into the grime. Sure, he was wearing black but he still felt like it would take forever to wash out that sticky substance that he’d just sat in. He didn’t even want to contemplate what could cause something sticky to be on the floor of this old crumbling hovel so just gently set up his equipment and tried not to think.

But the rustle in his breast pocket every time he breathed was bothering him. He was desperate to look at it.

**It’s no use…**

But he knew he shouldn’t. This wasn’t the time to be happy.

But, of course, curiosity was his kryptonite so he had to do _something_. The mundane was a good distraction; so he wondered why the old hotel was abandoned. He imagined five different background stories for the glorified shack’s fall to ruin and managed to kill… fifteen minutes.

Well, it was _something_. The event he was waiting for wouldn’t start for another half an hour so he just had to think up ten more. If he still had an interest which, if his, now paranoid, glances about the room at every suspicious creak were any indication, he most certainly did not.

He sighed and watched the dust particles he could see in the light of the sun be swept away by the wind of his breath. His hand lifted up to his breast pocket but he forced it higher until it reached his mouth instead. He chewed his thumb.

He pondered and chewed; chewed his thumb raw.

When the callused pad turned purple Joey begun to wonder if he and Despair should back off with this guy. Dartz seemed to be getting a little too out of it to be healthy. But, as a response, Joey got a mental shrug; the impression that Dartz had done this a few times before and the man was just bored. They would wake him from his stupor when it was time to make his shot.

Joey highly doubted Dartz was just bored. The man was tortured. So much so that even Joey could start to see the haggard man’s hallucinations. While his hands were covered in imagined blood Dartz wouldn’t dare touch his breast pocket, the supposed source of his hope. Joey wondered what could possibly make the man hopeful at this point as he solemnly stared and chewed, all blank gaze and bruised eyes.

When the time finally came, the aged, blue-haired man snapped his attention back to the task at hand so quickly that Joey began to feel a strange sense of assurance and faith in Despair. The hallucinations disappeared and the bruised thumb was carefully wiped. Maybe that _was_ just boredom. Dartz was a weirdo and a contract killer. Of course he had to act out of a high level of despair. Joey knew enough, had learned enough about this world; hell, he was even forgetting what it was like to have full control over his own body.

Their middle-aged sniper cradled his weapon like a lover and leaned into the sight.

Joey looked out at their target through the assassin’s eyes, not really registering what he was seeing.

A crowd, bustling like it would at a major duelling event in his home town. He couldn’t quite get at the name of the place at that moment but he remembered being at those events. The feel and the rush. The crush of all kinds of people in one place. He marvelled, despite himself, at the opportunity he had; to go through as many bodies as there were people in that crowd.

Distantly, Dartz drew a breath.

Well, the way Incubus-Joey had talked it looked like he was going to be doing just that until he forgot his identity and became firmly lost in trans-dimensional waves or whatever. Of course, _that_ Joey had also been on some sort of sex demon PMS and a little too stressed about his own life to put too much effort into saving his distant spiritual relative. Joey didn’t know how lucky he’d have to be to find someone who could help him more or even _as_ _much_ as his gay demon-self had.

An exhale brought calm stillness to Dartz’ body.

Was luck still his thing? It seemed like it wasn’t his thing anymore.

Dartz breathed in again.

More questions floated toward him as he stretched further into what remained of his memories. First, the strange dreams he had every night between worlds; then the previous night’s dream, about Kaiba. In every one of these worlds Kaiba showed up at some point. Was he next on the tour? Or would they bob by him later in the day? Joey supposed he didn’t wish any more despair on Kaiba. Not after the last thing he remembered doing to him.

_“KYAAAAAAAAAAAH!”_

The cry was shrill and infectious but it hadn’t been the sound that caught his attention.

The BANG should have done it but it didn’t.

Even the whispered huff of breath Dartz released as he’d fired should have done it but it _didn’t_.

The truth was far more illogical. Somehow, possibly through the vast outreach of senses his dust-spectre form possessed, Joey had heard a familiar voice. And that, “For Mokuba,” was what brought Joey’s attention almost painfully back to current events.

The crowd crashed in on itself like a sea dark with fear. Screams echoed all the way to their perch and a riot began as people ran for their lives. A single shot fired and people became mad with fear. Joey didn’t _see_ the chaos as much as hear it. Because the sight was gone. The trench coat was gone, the stern features were gone, the blue in his eyes was gone.

The brunet was gone.

And there was nothing remaining but a ringing in his ears.


	9. Mute Misery

The next time he looked out through Dartz’ mismatched eyes he saw a road and cars. People driving far more peacefully than Joey was used to. The chaos was behind them; a mere flash in Joey’s fading memories. But a vivid one. How? _Why_? Kaiba was better than that and that was far too easy and Kaiba would have seen it coming, _had_ to have seen it, and it was just way too simple and Kaiba was too smart to die!

Though Joey had lamented being alone with his feelings earlier that very day it seemed Despair wasn’t as indifferent to the human soul’s suffering as he expected. Sensing his discomfort Despair made use of yet another mysterious extra-sensory ability.

 _It’s a shame about that weapon’s company upstart_ , Dartz ruminated.

‘Thoughts?’

He could hear Dartz speaking to himself but the sound quality was different from when someone spoke aloud in this world. Joey was reminded of that morning. A similar thing had occurred in Theo’s head.

‘Weapons?’ Was the next question he asked, but Joey got a sort of spiritual shushing after that and proceeded to listen.

_I heard that he was going to change his father’s company into a gaming corporation…? Would have been a sight to see if he hadn’t lost his brother to that disease and lost his drive along with the child. He was only twenty too. Pity to lose such talent._

_Pity?_ Joey was seething. He’d just made friends- just fallen in love- what he _meant_ was he developed a crush on- Seto- _Kaiba_ had recently become someone… important? And-

_‘HOW DARE YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT? YOU KILLED HIM, YOU BASTARD!’_

Dartz’ hand abruptly went to his head and the car swerved wildly on the otherwise peaceful road as he overcorrected. Some chaos returned, other cars hooting in a mixture of annoyance and fear; but Dartz couldn’t gather himself. He held both his ears and shut his eyes tight against whatever wave of pain and discomfort Joey had caused him. The car began to drift across lanes.

**So did you.**

Now Dartz was just confused. His head was going haywire with conflicting ideas and emotions but now he had just enough presence of mind to put his hazards on and pull off the road for a few minutes. He took a few seconds to breathe through the lingering pain.

A ‘fuck you’ was all Joey could muster in response to Despair’s accusation as he took the hint and fell silent and still within Dartz mind. In just a few minutes they were back on the road and Joey could only think of the last time he’d actually seen Seto Kaiba.

It was last night. When they’d gotten drunk in some strange woman’s house and stumbled over each other. He remembered Kaiba’s firm chest at his back, the heat of lust in his otherwise cold blue eyes. He remembered soft, thin lips and a skilful tongue and playful teeth and then his own teeth becoming fangs and piercing firm flesh and the taste of blood and the sensation of drinking something in through the blood- but wait, no, that wasn’t right. Joey didn’t have fangs. Right now he didn’t even have a body. And he’d never kiss Kaiba, no matter how drunk he was. Right. That hadn’t been Joey. It had been a different version of him. One that liked men and had fangs. He remembered that.

He remembered that.

They swam around Dartz’ mind; Joey dragging Despair’s dust-ball soul around in ragged circles as he gathered up memories like papers scattered in the wind.

**Disappearing.**

Joey froze in his frantic gathering.

**Fast.**

He would have roared for Despair to shut up if he was himself. The old Joey would fight and yell and kick and scream and never give up or hear about how impossible things were. That’s what Joey thought the old Joey would do at least. Right now, that Joey just seemed like yet another life he’d lived.

**Stop.**

Joey felt vaguely amused at the irony of the embodiment of despair telling someone to stop despairing. He then felt a sense of exasperation aimed towards him and wished he had a mouth so he could smirk.

**Look.**

Joey listened instead. His mind had short-circuited and it seemed to be playing a rerun of the many faces of Seto Kaiba in lieu of his eyesight. Keys were clattering and jingling together, making an absurd amount of noise for just unlocking a door. Joey guessed Dartz’ hands must be shaking.

He felt more than saw the exit from Dartz mind as a deep sigh followed the clack of a lock finally opened. He panicked. He couldn’t go out there again. He was scared. What if he ended up in one of the people from the crowd during the assassination? What if they seated themselves in a bodyguard close to Kaiba? Shit, what if Kaiba had loving parents in this reality and he and Despair bobbed themselves into the thoughts of a grieving mind?

Kaiba was everywhere.

In every world Joey visited Kaiba was a constant. They could be enemies, strangers, friends, colleagues, even two different types of _beings_ and they would still interact in some way. They would still influence each other. He would say the universe was playing a sick joke on him but _every_ universe?

**No. No more.**

Now Joey seemed to be unable to understand language as well because Despair wouldn’t say something as nice as that, take a night off, for him.

**I understand.**

Despair really didn’t understand but Joey could tell it was trying to.

**You lost someone.**

Before Joey could protest in vain the exit closed and they were left together in the swirling sea of the madman’s mind.

**We will stay.**

Dartz stumbled from living room to kitchen to bed and promptly crumbled. He took a swig of some very hard-looking liquor; the kind Joey remembered nicknaming bad-day-brandy from when his dad came home and grabbed it first thing. It wasn’t brandy. But Joey refused to get familiar with alcohol enough to tell the difference.

**You can mourn.**

Fat chance, came the knee-jerk reaction. A long-fingered hand fumbled in the breast pocket Joey distantly recalled Dartz being obsessed with. A crisp, folded paper slipped out after a few shaky attempts and Dartz deftly unfolded it with one hand. He took another swig and let the burn slip down his throat and into his churning stomach. He either had to drink or throw up and he’d be damned if he did one before the other.

Joey peered out through Dartz eyes, feeling just well enough to see something other than Kaiba for a bit. Dartz’ face screwed up then so the paper blurred for a second but it cleared up in the next and Joey caught a name, some messily scrawled words going down the page, red pen marks and a score. A spindly thumb fondly rubbed the red 84 as Dartz sent a trembling grin to the name on the paper.

What, so Dartz had a kid? He remembered that being a thing in his home universe. The kid was dead though. It had been a girl. Maybe.

It took a bit more peering through the man’s quickly filling eyes to notice a desk with a pile of neatly stacked papers and some files, rows of paper stacks stretched out from beside the desk actually, and a pot of red pens was flowering on the left side of the desk.

Teacher?

His suspicions were confirmed when Dartz hauled out paper after paper from various hiding places around him, all with different names and scores, and cried over them; muttering apologies to the ink. The man was weird. But soon he would cry himself to sleep and Joey could leave this confusing and depressing world and figure out a way to go back to his home.

Dartz began to wail.

Joey realised it would be long road to peaceful sleep for both of them.

His ears were ringing but at least he wasn’t in dream-rape-Kaiba land.

Well that was a fun way to utterly destroy the image of Kaibaland in his head.

The positive point was that he wasn’t in his previous night’s nightmare.

But now, on the not so much of an upside, he was back in the familiar apocalyptic red landscape and it seemed like he’d entered the graveyard level. Fog shrouded elaborate tombstones like the crumbling rocks were undead ladies at a bloody midnight ball. Even among the dead he couldn’t smell anything and the air tasted alive with an almost physical malice. Joey could feel an endlessness to the resting places of the dead that spread all around him.

No. He wasn’t going to let himself slip into depression and hopelessness here. He’d faced far too many and much scarier things than seeing someone die. He wouldn’t let future problems and ambition problems and sexuality problems and whatever the hell else he’d brought along with him so far on this trip make him falter.

He was Joey damn Wheeler and he was going to tough this trip out! No matter how… unnaturally… terrifying… everything was.

He jumped when a figure caught his eye. It flickered past him like a shadow seeking out its owner, like a soul trying to find its body. He could no longer hear it say anything but he knew it was the creature that had likely trapped him and probably planned to eat him after… whatever the hell kind of plan it already had in place.

As it searched with smouldering, coal eyes, Joey ducked away from its gaze and wondered if he’d seen the monstrous beast before. If Yugi and the gang had faced something like it, maybe. Though he’d be the last to remember anything about it now anyway.

Weighty feelings settled over him again. Fear and depression and… grief. He couldn’t seem to hear over the memory of Dartz screams anymore so he huddled beneath a stone angel and tried not to scream as well.

The longer he cowered the more he began to feel soul sucked into something painfully. Like a vacuum cleaner attached firmly like a leech to his spine. This sensation continued until it overwhelmed his senses and he hurt so much that he felt nothing. Eventually Dartz’ screams faded to murmurs but it didn’t bring him any relief.

In fact, it intensified the strain on his stressed muscles the more excited the muttering became. So that he felt like he was fighting a dozen grasping hands as he resurfaced from sleep. Maybe that was why it was slow going for him.

The murmuring was ceaseless, his neck was stiff, and he opened his eyes to white. Blinking the fuzz away from his vision he took in shapes within the whiteness and splashes of colour in between objects. He’d seen enough churches on his dad’s battered TV to recognise pews like the one he’d dozed off in and an altar on the far side of the cavernous hall. There was a happy crowd surrounding, but not attending, his pew.

He saw a few familiar faces scattered across the rows and wondered at how they weren’t all clumped together and why he couldn’t find Yugi anywhere. There was Tristan, second to front row, a pained expression on his face as he self-consciously prodded his hair. Téa stood as a bridesmaid, next to Mai who kept tugging on her gown as if the fit was wrong. He smiled at how familiar they were.

He was just rejoicing about not seeing Kaiba around for once when the music changed tune and the doors behind him began to open. His mind departed far from Kaiba in the wake of seeing his family; happy. He wondered if he’d gone back to the first dimension he’d visited, but a couple of years into the future; because his dad looked like he hadn’t had a drop of alcohol past his limit in this life and Serenity… well, Serenity was getting married.

They ambled slowly, purposefully, so everyone could snatch a look at the bride out of the corner of their eye and have her gradually be drawn forward into comfortable sight.

Joey glowed when his radiant sister scrunched up her face in an ecstatic little grin as she passed him.

She looked beyond lovely in her gown; an auburn crystal on a stream of lily pads, buoyed by a proud man and the happiness of being bound to the one she loved. Joey sat back against the smooth wood of his seat to take a moment to assess the guy who would promise to make his little sister happy all her life.

He immediately felt sick to his stomach.

His hand went to comfort the almost physical turmoil at knowing this man wasn’t right for his precious sibling. More than simple dislike, the sensation was visceral and horrible and sad.

Duke Devlin awaited his bride at the altar like the perfect groom he was. His green eyes, usually as blank and rich as the green fabric stretched over a pool table, were a sparkling emerald and his lucky dice were plainly tucked into a suit pocket before the same hand reached out to Joey’s little sister. It was obvious that he loved her with all his heart and yet Joey _still_ couldn’t feel himself accept it. He shrugged his wide shoulders as if he could physically shake off the sense in the air that said this beautiful ceremony would go sharply south soon.

He looked back at his sister’s luminous smile, visible even behind her veil, and felt his heart sink as reality settled in and she stopped in front of Duke and allowed him to reveal her happiness to the assembly. His touch delicate on the veil.

Joey felt agitated suddenly. His heart and his knee wouldn’t stop bouncing and he had yet to take a look at his own face but he could tell he was scowling.

“Good morning sleeping beauty,” his heart leaped while his upper body swivelled; his innards a whirlwind of incessant, anxious motion. He hadn’t noticed the man beside him. “I was beginning to think you would snore through the entire ceremony.”

Not _now_. He didn’t need this _now_ ; he didn’t need this at _all_. Why did he find himself haunted by this _one_ person?

“I considered waking you but, you know what they say, ‘let sleeping dogs lie’.” His grin was surprisingly friendly but still empty, his cold eyes unexpectedly warm and yet still distant; and his posture startlingly casual but this was still Seto Kaiba and dog jokes would prevail.

“Shut up, Seto,” he heard himself grumble without venom and swept his eyes back to the ceremony. His ears, however, quickly drowned out the droning of the pastor in favour of the words of his companion.

“I really am sorry about not waking you though,” Kaiba sincerely apologised behind a chuckle, “and you're alone here because no one wanted to sit next to the wedding’s resident Grinch.” The dark suit accented in a cloudy blue wrinkled as Kaiba sat back and folded his arms across his chest. Most people were beaming forward except for Joey, who was glaring forward, and his only companion, who was studying the blond beside him.

When Joey did speak he seemed to growl and tense further. “This wedding shouldn’t be happening.” Kaiba nodded like he’d heard it all before. Joey waited, because he knew what would come next.

“Then why don’t you object?” it wasn’t really a question. They were just going through the same motions they had been for months now. The blond sibling had been muttering ominous warnings to the CEO ever since the green-eyed groom had proposed.

Surely enough, like they had almost rehearsed the exchange, Joey turned back to his bench-mate and glared with watered down venom.

“You know very well how people have always felt about my opinion Kaiba. No one has ever believed my ‘intuition’; it’s better not to be labelled a freak on top of that.”

The richer man frowned minutely as he became slightly more invested in the argument.

“She’s your sister, Wheeler. It shouldn’t matter if the assembly thinks you're insane or even if she does. It’s your duty as the older sibling to protect her no matter what. God knows I would do anything for Mokuba, despite what he’s done. Actually, more so _because_ of what he’s done.” He swallowed and looked contemplative for a second. Dimension-Hop Joey wondered what exactly had gone down as his current reality was apparently trying desperately hard to forget.

“Think, Joey,” the other man said once he’d finished brooding. “I know it’s not your strong suit but if you can’t get people to believe your predictions, create some logical reasoning to back it up. There must be a source for your distrust in this marriage. What is it?”

Like the nosy jerk hadn’t already done a thorough background check without being asked.

The brunet had leaned forward unconsciously as he queried and Joey was unintentionally reminded of a time when their faces had gravitated toward each other before. With an obviously flustered expression and a hasty jerk he pulled his gaze from his confused companion’s and chewed on his lip as he thought. His eyes sought out the distinct hairstyle of his oldest friend, Tristan, and he glanced between this head and the groom’s face.

“I guess… just…” he slowly stumbled for words that didn’t sound dumb inside his own head. “Tristan loves her more you know? I can just tell he does and Duke’s not a bad guy but his gambling habits sure are. There’s a risk here, you see, and…” he trailed off, unfinished because he decided his words sounded bad even with the filter.

“There’s a risk involved with every relationship, Wheeler,” the other man’s voice was uncharacteristically tender while still being reproachfully sarcastic, “but if it really bothers you so much the least you could do is try to convince them to hold off.”

“They’ve been together for _four_ years, Kaiba. They’re young, impatient, how do you tell twenty-something-year-olds to ‘hold off’?” he dejectedly rebutted.

Seto closed his blue eyes tiredly and brought his elbows to his knees; a sign of fatigue he would never show near his office. Exasperated with Joey and their endless argument, he was tempted to bite his lip but stopped himself short, remembering that his lips were kept meticulously smooth and he didn’t want to wrinkle them now.

“Are you always going to live this way?” he asked one of the few people he considered to be somewhat of a friend.

“… what way?” Joey clenched his jaw and looked away.

“You certainly don’t like it,” Seto pointed out to the glistening back of the pew before his faraway gaze, “always regretting not speaking your mind and yet never kicking the habit.”

“I don’t speak my mind because no one listens, Seto, no one ever has.” The brunet’s hair fluttered as he moved his head indignantly. Joey noticed this and responded quickly; “Except for you. No one except you, okay?”

Seto snorted. “Yes, and it took the first and only company party I ever attended and quite a few drinks for even _that_ to happen.” The brunet was wryly examining the blonde as he spoke but Joey just chuckled at the familiar tale and spoke no more. “And that’s what happens when you talk to strangers.”

Joey rolled his eyes.

Seto’s wry and almost humorous expression fell to something harsh and solemn as he turned his gaze away from the look on Joey’s face, knowing the next of his words would wound the fierce man.

“Do you want this,” he began in a low and gravelly tone, “to be like that bullying phase in high school?” he didn’t have to see it to know that that single sentence had slammed a hammer into the other’s gut.

“The boy you could sense you were breaking but didn’t _believe_ _enough_ in your ominous feelings to stop?” a quick, regretful, glance at Joey’s usually bright face deflected guilty blue eyes back to the ceremony.

“Is this as easy to disregard as that sunny morning in the apartment you shared with Téa when you were ninety-nine percent certain it was going to rain? Will you fret and worry like you did back then about the life-changing audition she had the next day and yet still not say a word like when she opened the front door and said she was going for a run?”

Joey didn’t have the same qualms Seto did about chewing his lips, his hands clenched around each other as he remembered his mistakes.

“Or maybe,” Seto began lifting fingers off his last bombshell, “this scenario most resembles that of _my_ younger sibling making a mistake?”

Joey’s neck ached because he’d swung it so hard.

He could definitely see the similarities. He could see jail time having something to do with this situation too. Joey closed his eyes and felt dizzy in the sudden darkness. He didn’t need Seto’s recount of the consequences of not speaking his mind. He could see them as clear as day in his head.

“Mokuba and I have a tenuous trust that will be nothing like it used to be.” Seto took a slow breath as he confessed. “Not after he stole from me. Stole money from the company that would have been his anyway. A hasty car swerved into the unlucky Miss Gardner and though she kept the life in her body you’ll remember that she lost the life in her eyes. Another person who brushed against death was the boy you and Tristan coerced into suicide; and yet none of these things make you think that maybe keeping quiet would do more harm than good?”

Joey’s body wound tighter and tighter.

Kaiba rested against the glistening wood of the pew. “It’s not that you're _scared_ Wheeler. I can tell that. You have the courage of a lion. You need it with that annoying penchant for honesty you carry around in your eyes. It’s what drove you to contact Yugi Muto after all this time; to make amends with the boy you scarred all those years ago. Hell, it’s even in your _job_ description.” Seto was becoming uncharacteristically impassioned. The Joey taking a ride into this universe, on his current self’s orders, promised not to be so astonished by everything the CEO did in this universe. This Seto Kaiba _was_ familiar. This Seto was his friend

“That bark has _got_ to be good for something other than yapping at me to be a kinder person. You’ve got a voice for a _reason_ ,” he laid a hand on the other’s shoulder as he felt the kind of ardour he usually retained for his work begin to well up in his chest and seek an outlet, “now you can either whimper, or you can roar.”

It would have been cringeworthy if it wasn’t so captivating. The vibration against Joey’s heart startled his gaze away from heated, blue eyes and he hastily fumbled for his cell phone. It lit up his face as he accessed the message he’d received. The news gave him an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude.

“…Yugi….” He whispered almost reverently. He didn’t think he’d had a shadow of a chance of getting the boy he and Tristan had tortured in high school to talk to him again but it had happened. He could apologise. He could fix at least one of the mistakes he’d made.

He looked back up at his co-worker-turned-unlikely-friend and saw the taller do something he hadn’t done since before the Mokuba incident. The corners of his mouth were turned up at the sides and the naturally smooth lips smoothed even further as they stretched into what Joey disbelievingly concluded was a genuine smile. His mouth automatically twitched in response but, at that moment, his ears decided to tune back into the ceremony.

“…not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace…” the extremely old man trailed off and Joey was left to wonder if this was his cue. He glanced at the minister as he dawdled faltering eyes over the gathering, politely searching for those with misgivings as slowly as he had performed the rest of the ceremony.

“Well you’ve certainly picked a very dramatic moment to come to your senses, “he glanced sideways at the good humour in the Kaiba’s voice. Seto deliberately looked him in the eye with the barest of smirks and lightly tapped the blond’s shoulder.

“Go get ‘em tiger.”


	10. There Goes the Groom

The hand on his shoulder he expected to be weighing him down seemed to buoy him up so he straightened his knees a little and began to stand when the doors to the hall ominously creaked open to reveal a gang of thugs and one woman, dressed in a form-fitting floral print.

The mini-crowd of muscle parted like a black-tie sea as this woman clacked forward on heels too thin to be practical. The smooth colour of her hips was revealed by the slits in her gradient-coloured white-to-red dress that was pulled taught over her gifted chest. A displeased line described her rosy lips and the white talons of her fingertips gradually dug into the clothed flesh over her hips.

“I,” she announced, “have an objection.” Her unhappy stare was obviously aimed at the tense bridegroom beside his bride and Joey felt himself stand all the way up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tristan do the same.

Eyes darted around the room. Tristan glared with single-minded hostility at the strange woman while Serenity did her own frightened and confusedly protective stare of her own. Duke’s previously sparkling green was dulling and darkening with horror as they jumped between the two most imposing women in the room. Joey’s eyes were narrowed and attempting to observe the woman, Tristan, Duke, and Serenity simultaneously as Seto took in the entire scenario from his seat.

“I do so hate to interrupt such joyous proceedings,” her goons spread out, intimidating the guests, “but word has reached my people that Mr Devlin is to sign a pre-nup.” Duke swallowed. “Now how he expects to pay his debts on time without marrying into a bit of money is something we need to discuss. _Before_ Mr Devlin enters into another contract.” She smiled then. It was cold and serpentine.

Duke’s flitting glances between his soon-to-be wife and creditor only became more terrified. On one of his eyes’ many treks into the auburn of Serenity’s hair he met her curious and apprehensive brown gaze instead. His eyes stuck there like a car in a mud-pit, straining to leave but trapped in the viscous earth. He stared for a long moment into that warmth and came out calm. His mind made, Duke smiled sadly. He turned his head to regard the bristling Tristan for a moment and then looked back to Serenity as she stared at him for reassurance.

“I’m sorry Ren,” he murmured as he lifted his hands to cup her dimming face. “I thought I could do this, I really thought we could make it, but…” he gently touched his lips to her forehead as he spoke his next words.

“I can’t marry you.”

The assembly couldn’t hear his hoarse whisper nor see his face but Serenity’s expression said it all. Leaving heartbreak on his former bride’s frozen face he steadily began to approach the evil smirk of the wedding-crasher. Serenity came back to life in a flash of desperate pain. She began by softly and sorrowfully begging him to stay, to say he was lying, to get back in front of the altar and marry her dammit!

Her grip on her runaway groom began to turn a shade of frenzy and Duke’s gentle removal from her was slowed by it. She was blindly crying now and Joey’s heart ached for his little sister as well as tightened with the displeasure that came with having known this was going to happen. The urge to move buzzed under his skin as Duke finally succeeded in prying his mourning bride from his suit’s arm and walked away from her.

He rested a deceptively still hand on Tristan’s trembling shoulder and nonchalantly announced that the abandoned bride beside the minister was the brown-eyed man’s now. No one besides Tristan heard the added request, as desperate and mournful as Serenity’s sobs, for the taller boy to keep her safe and for neither of them to follow. The muscles in Tristan’s jaw stood at attention and his broad build stiffened with more rage, new sorrow, uncertain tension; it was hard to tell. It took only a moment, rushed because Duke didn’t seem to be expecting an answer.

“Dude,” he choked, “What are they gonna-.” A warm hand covered his mouth and Duke shook his head with a reassuring smile. His fingers left his rival’s chin and trailed back to his side.

When the intruding woman’s blazing amber eyes were close enough to burn the skin off his chin Duke lifted his arm in a parody of a man asking a woman to dance and looked into her deadly gaze.

“Shall we take this elsewhere?” he oozed nonchalance and the woman’s smile actually seemed to grow a tad genuine as she slipped her arm around his and turned toward the doors.

“Congratulations. You’ve impressed me. There are surprisingly few men who would feign fearlessness in your situation.” He smiled in return, one as fabricated as hers was true, but didn’t speak in response. Instead, he looked over his shoulder at Joey as he passed the raring but uncertain blond.

“Anyone following us is likely to disappear with me, I take it.” the obvious intended recipient for this information jerked back in surprise. Joey had, honestly, been expecting a plea for help of some sort. “I’d rather not have my wife lose her husband _and_ brother on our disaster of a wedding day so thanks, Kaiba, for leashing the mutt.” He aimed a jovial wink at the pair as Joey suddenly became aware of Seto’s hand on his arm; became aware that it had always been there. The pressure of its presence increased momentarily and he looked down at the resolute Seto Kaiba.

He was angry.

At so many things. At Kaiba for hindering his attempts at helping Duke, at Duke for getting into trouble, at himself for knowing something like this was going to happen and not doing something.

His reverie snapped with a crescendo of a shriek from Serenity as she broke from the minister’s inadequate hold and raced after her departing groom in her heavy dress. Out of the corner of Joey’s wide eyes while Duke’s face was still in his view, he watched horror enter the man’s expression again but with an underlayer of stone-thick resolve that prevented the black-haired boy from turning back.

Her scream was cut short by her capture at Tristan’s hands. His arms circled her in a cage of comfort and stillness as she uncaringly screeched incoherent words at Duke’s back. The crowd in the cathedral sat statuesque, confused and scared and unhelpful.

Joey was one of them, unmoving and unsure, Seto’s hand convincing him that movement was a bad idea. The doors closed behind the dangerous posse and it took a few more tense moments before relief permeated the room. Serenity’s sobs descending in volume and leaving a lingering sense of unease in everyone’s minds. Otherwise, the audience was content to forget the events and wait for some sort of instruction on how to handle the aftermath.

Tristan was whispering comforts into Serenity’s ear in an attempt at calming her down that erupted into sudden misluck as she reared back, raised her hand and slapped him square across the jaw. In surprise he flinched away from her squirming body and let her slip past him. She ran; unhindered, back down the aisle. Joey watched his father take control of the assembly and try to hush the concerned and curious murmurs. His mother, who he hadn’t noticed until she had run up beside his dad, rushed to help him when it looked like he was sinking under the pressure.

Seto’s grip on him loosened when he stood as well. He bent his head slightly toward Joey as he began dragging the shorter man to the aisle.

“You take care of your sister. I’ll retrieve Tristan and see what we can do to help Devlin.”

“But-,” the pressure on his wrist increased again as the taller man pulled Joey into the presence of his sharp, blue eyes and growled at him.

“She’s your sister, Wheeler,” the words were familiar; “It’s your duty as the older sibling to protect her, no matter what.” Familiar and true.

He sprinted after Serenity, not looking back to see Seto smile at his charging back. He caught up easily, her dress was a hindrance and he’d always been the more athletic one, and circled an arm around her waist. Not halting her momentum, but redirecting it; he steered her through the front doors of the church and desperately tried to remember where he’d parked his car.

There was struggle but it was minimal. She was, after all, fighting her brother, beginning to tire and Joey wasn’t really stopping her, just adjusting her course. The car may not have been her destination but by the time they’d reached it she wasn’t really opposed to getting in. Joey shoved her gently, but nevertheless still shoved, into the passenger side and bundled her dress in after her before closing the door.

She half-heartedly banged on the window in protest but her hand quickly slipped into her lap to be rained on by her tears. By the time Joey had gotten into the driver’s seat and pulled her head into his chest her sobs were little more than hiccups. She was crying in hopelessness now. He sensed that she was worried for Duke’s safety and was wailing now because she knew she had no way to help. It took her a moment in this phase before she realised she was sitting beside her strong, big brother.

She struggled to separate her head from his chest so she could glare daggers up at his concerned eyes.

“What?” he asked bemusedly.

“Why are you _here_?” she hissed furiously.

“ _What_?” he repeated; doubly puzzled.

Her bloodshot eyes narrowed in heated focus on his face and rage twisted her mouth into a sneer.

“I know there’s nothing I can do. Duke told me they might come for him, that woman holds a grudge for a game they played or something, he told me they might…” her voice faltered, “that they might try to kill him,” she gripped her face tightly, her nails digging into her skin, “they came… they came in the middle, of our _wedding_ because… they wanted to humiliate him.”

Her tears were fresh and he saw her shoulders slump with resignation.

“That’s why… I _know_ I’d make it worse if I went after them.” She put a hand to her mouth and pressed fingers to her lips before dragging them into a fist. She let that half-formed fist hang at the edge of her lips as she continued to speak.

“But _you_ are stronger than I am, you used to get into fights all the time in high school and I know you haven’t lost your touch over the years just… _why_ are you _here_ when you should be out _there_ , helping Duke fight those-, _monsters_?”

Joey stared at his sister in impressed disbelief. He smiled sadly at her accusations and demands. It was time to impart some of the wisdom he’d learned for the day and hope it was enough to convince both of them that his place was in that car seat.

“Fighting his demons,” the blond began, “is Duke’s job, Ren.” Her face contorted in anger but he pressed on, interrupting her.

“Protecting you is _my_ job.” He convinced her.

She rolled her reddened eyes.

“And protecting Duke is _our_ job.” From the tone in his voice the word ‘our’ somehow encompassed a community of people. She understood, somewhat reluctantly, that they had a lot more allies than she believed.

“Trust me, Ren, I’ve got our people on it.” He reassured her with half a grin. Movement outside the passenger seat’s window drew his eye to what happened to be Duke’s payment for offending the wedding-crasher woman. He couldn’t help jerking in a wince at a particularly forceful blow to the young man’s gut that lifted his body into the air a couple of centimetres and ejected blood from his mouth.

His sudden tensing caught Serenity’s attention and she shifted curiously. He held her tighter and began to stroke her head, speaking to distract himself from the event unfolding just outside of his car that his eyes were nailed to.

“A- and… Duke will come out of this just fine.” He said on a shaky breath, confidence increasing with the words. “I can feel it.” Serenity frowned but let herself be comforted by her brother’s voice, her puffy eyes drooping closed as the first taps of rain pattered onto the roof. Joey kept his eyes on the scene in front of him, wondering why he had parked his car near the back of the church, why the gangsters had chosen here to do this, wondering why it had to be today. His little sister’s wedding day.

He almost missed the movement that followed out of the corner of his blurry eyes. The second of the new arrivals caught his gaze and Joey’s pumping heart jumped. The recipient of his gaze smirked at him and he returned it with a relieved smile of his own. Watery brown eyes followed Seto and Tristan as they rounded the corner of the church and threw themselves before Duke’s attackers.

He finally closed them to suppress the yearning to join the fight, to help.

He hadn’t had the chance to try speaking out this time but he wouldn’t be so hesitant the next. God knows he didn’t want a repeat of the wedding day debacle. Regret at not listening to Seto earlier shuddered through his body along with the cold.

He felt Serenity doze off; the grief, worry and rain like a lullaby to a scared child. Not long after, he felt himself follow her to slumber; the itching under his skin soothed away by the sound of the splattering tears from the sky.

The graveyard was chilly this time.

He looked down at himself for the first time in these dream-world intervals and realised that he wasn’t… wearing clothes. He jumped in embarrassed surprise and material abruptly manifested over his form. He frowned and spluttered at it when it began to, as if unsure of which he would like, shimmer and shift between all the clothes he’d seen himself wear in each dimension.

His wedding suit, the first outfit to materialise, switched parts of itself out with his business suit before he was wearing comfortable jeans from that world closest to his original one and shoes, too small, from his Christmas day world.

Confused and dizzy from the constant changes Joey looked up and resolved to never look down again, not unless it was absolutely necessary. Still feeling the chill in the sky he began to aimlessly weave through the tombstones, momentarily forgetting that a beast stalked this sanctuary of bones.

His memory loss didn’t last long when a cloud of fog scudded to the side to abruptly reveal a matte-black, scaled torso. Instinctually, he dove behind a large tombstone; peeping tentatively around the rock to watch it search for him. This time, however, the beast seemed to be talking to someone, or _something_ , that Joey still couldn’t see.

 ** _“… this is a good idea?”_** Gruff, calculated and somehow haughty, Joey felt a strange connection with this voice. ** _“Will he really be able to see me like this?”_**

A pause for the other to answer before the dark creature tilted its head quizzically. The gesture struck Joey as being oddly cute and he blinked at the sudden change in feeling toward the mysterious monster.

**_“Well,_ yes _, the connection_ is _stronger. I guess I’ll trust you then.”_**

Joey was suddenly fearless. The strange connection tugged at him. Apprehension was replaced with intense curiosity. He tensed his body to jump out in front of the creature. He’d been able to see its form for two nights now; it was time to test if this was a two-way street.

His fingers pressed into the dirt for propulsion. His heart skipped twice in his chest before he leaned back, bunched his muscles and leap-


	11. How to Funeral for Fuck-Ups

Waking up was a surprise jolt this time.

Like exiting a nightmare Joey’s eyes flew wide open, he gasped for air and his heart thudded against his ribs. Sharp blinks brought the awareness of darkness to his brain.

It was the moment just after dusk; when the last of fragments of light were just swept from the horizon and, right now, happened to be revealing a dusty sky.

He assessed his surroundings, once again expecting to see a new world. He saw the dark sky out of a car window. He was sitting in the driver’s seat. He was wearing a suit. What his eyes and skin met with startled him. Had he stayed in the reality he’d fallen asleep in?

The car breathed frigid air at him so that he felt as if he were in a mortuary. Fumbling with numb hands for the air conditioning he brushed against startlingly warm skin and realised that a person-shaped patch of heat still lay against his chest. So, Serenity was still with him then.

It was beginning to look more and more likely that he’d stayed put for once.

Relief flooded his cold body. The aircon slowly warmed the air, the vents eventually breathing hot on his arm. He freed a sigh and let a low laugh follow it. His mouth spread into a smile.

There was a lot he could live with in this world. There was a lot he could grow to like. His father and mother looked happy in their marriage, he had a job he seemed to enjoy, Kaiba was somewhat of a friend, and he’d just gotten Yugi to talk to him. He could make amends for this realm’s Joey. He could learn to live with the difficulty of Serenity’s marriage and watch her and everyone else around him be, otherwise, happy.

Yes. He was sure Duke was fine by now. Seto had probably found a way to talk those gangsters out of killing him, or paid his debt for him or-

The copper head beneath him stirred and he lifted his chin enough so he could look down on his sister with a smile he finally believed would never again disappear from his face.

“Hey there Ren, you awake now?” the happiness in his voice seemed to freeze Serenity in her tracks. She seemed hesitant to wake up and face the world, probably still worried about Duke.

“Hey, _hey_ , everything’s okay, okay?” he almost chuckled at the joy in his own voice; he hadn’t felt this elated since he’d thought that he was back to his original reality in that college one.

He shifted the body in his arms so he could see his beautiful little sibling’s face. “We must have fallen asleep in the car, Ren, my back aches like a drill’s been shoved into my… spine…”

His face froze and so did his heart, despite the fact that his skin was beginning to blister with heat. Had, he mused while watching the girl rub the sleepiness from her lovely eyes, had… Serenity gotten younger?

He watched the young girl shake her shining head and blink up at him, grief in her glistening eyes.

“It’s me, Annelle,” she attempted to convince him, “Mommy’s gone daddy,” she informed him.

“Mommy’s gone to heaven.”

The words triggered memories that were his, but not his because; he couldn’t accept that they were his. He couldn’t accept that he’d lived through the nightmare playing out like a horror movie inside his head. Disbelief and grief played tug of war with his attention and he felt his hold go limp over the young child encircled by his biceps.

That’s exactly what she was, a young child. About six or seven years old and the spitting image of his sister but not wearing the wedding dress he remembered. Dressed in a black dress that looked elegant on her light frame. As regal as the visiting Joey remembered Serenity was at that age. With the bright wave of her hair and the light of her eyes; he could see Serenity in every pore on this girl’s, on Annelle’s, face.

But she _wasn’t_ Serenity.

He glanced outside the car windows again and realised what his brain had overlooked in a desperate attempt to stay rooted in one reality.

The graveyard just beyond the glass mirrored the one in his dreams. In the nightmare world where blood-red mist cloaked the gravestones like rags draped over the dead. Dark-barked trees provided natural walls to this open-air room of corpses. They were assisted by a grey half-wall. Similar in colour to the cloudy sky and solid in the mournful fog; it fenced and gated the area like a prison more than a cemetery.

His breath was coming quicker and the smile on his face became fogged with panic.

 _No_ , he pleaded in this man’s mind, _not another sad reality._ God _, why are there so_ many _?_

Annelle studied his bewildered face with aggrieved eyes. Her hand touched his cheek to comfort him and he realised it really was small. Very small. He held it to his face and gave her a look that he hoped said: ‘hold on sweetie, daddy’s just getting his bearings, I’ll be back to normal in a jiff.’

Once he closed his eyes the memories came as if he was watching a movie. Like someone else’s life, a doppelgänger’s, played before his eyelids. For one of the Joeys in this father’s mind it _was_ someone else’s life. He still felt the pain of their mutual loss, however. And deeply.

Like the images thrown forward by a projector, her frown flickered into view.

“Joey, you know you can’t talk to your boss like that. This isn’t high school where being the delinquent is charming, this is real life and you need to live it!”

She was scolding him again.

She did it at least once a week he recalled. About something he’d done or forgotten to do, something he’d said or forgotten to say. Something he forgot that she then promised he never would again. She was always trying to correct him, pushing him to be better than he was. Always laughing in rough times and grinning in tough times. She rarely cried in their marriage… a smile never left her face… his wife…

Serenity…

“She’s gonna have your hair.” He thought he sounded a little choked up, but what father wouldn’t be, at the birth of his daughter.

“And she’s gonna have your eyes,” Serenity giggled tiredly in return; “Cliché, isn’t it?” she didn’t look up at him as she spoke; her gaze settled on, stuck to and doting on the little being in the cradle of her arms.

“I’d say take a picture,” he gruffed at her staring, “but we already took enough to fill a gallery.”

She laughed and finally glanced up at him lovingly. Even this didn’t last long, however, her darker brown eyes dropping back to their child, studying every inch of her little pink body.

“So,” Joey began so that he wouldn’t get lost in the beauteous sight of his lovely wife and their new-born child, “what are we naming her?”

This grabbed the woman’s attention.

“ _What_?” she glared venomously at him and he stiffened in confused fright. What had he said?

“You didn’t find a name for her?”

Joey blinked at the accusation, now _that_ didn’t sound right.

“What do you mean _me_? You said you were going to take care of it,” he accused right back.

“No, I didn’t,” Serenity followed up; “Well, I offered,” she admitted, “but you said _you_ wanted to be the one to name our daughter!”

“Lies!” he returned, affronted, “ _you_ said I would, ‘ _doubtless’_ , fuck things up if I were to give the kid a name, you _glared_ at me when I offered!”

“Language, fucktard!”

“You're doing the same thing!” Joey insisted, “Only it’s weirder out of your mouth than mine.”

“You're right, only stupidity comes out of your mouth,” Serenity scathed and held her baby protectively to her chest.

“Hey!” Joey was offended, but only a little, “do you want the first conversation our kid hears from her parents to be an argument?” He breathed out. Serenity narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips, scowled, and then pouted. Finally wiping the sourness from her expression she lowered her eyes back down to the baby and sighed softly.

“Okay,” she whined, “sometimes smart things _do_ come out of your mouth.” She admitted reluctantly. Joey pretended to preen at her fake attempt at praise. They both chuckled at their little argument, hovering closer to their offspring.

“See that Nelly,” Serenity whispered to the salmon pink face, “mommy and daddy were just playing, just being silly-billies.”

Joey cooed in agreement before stalling in surprise.

“Wait, what did you just call her?”

Serenity looked at him absently. “Nelly, I think, why?”

“That’s _my_ question, Ren. Where’d you get ‘Nelly’?”

Serenity shrugged heavy shoulders, fatigue in the lines on her drowsy face. The play-argument happened to have taken a toll on her energy levels.

“I dunno. It just came to me, sounded natural and all.” It took her a second to figure out why her husband, the bouncing star he had always been, was beaming a sunny smile at her this time. Her own mouth twisted downwards and darkened.

“No,” she immediately put her foot down, “We are _not_ naming our daughter _Nelly_.”

Joey was already shaking his cropped-blonde head and resting a warm palm over one of her hands to console her.

“No, no; honey of course not.” He assured her against the mundane name. They had long ago decided common names would never do for their extraordinary child. “We’ll name her something you can get Nelly from, like…” his eyes drifted around the hospital in search of a title from the ether. With a satisfied smile he plucked one from the drifts of his mind and put it to his lips.

“We’ll name her Annelle.” He decided.

Serenity thought on it a second before letting out an amused little huff, tenderly tapping a rosy cheeky with a pale finger and stroking it gently.

“Decided.” She whispered, and bent lower to kiss their first born’s forehead. The first of at least two more. His wife had always wanted siblings growing up. “Annelle, Nelly dear; meet Jo and Ren,” she introduced them by nickname, “we’re your parents.” A tear dropped onto the newly named Annelle's forehead, startling the baby girl, before it was hastily wiped away and her mother moved her head into her father’s chest to shed tears of happiness into his shirt.

Joey felt his eyes ache in the present as he reached for Annelle's head again; her auburn locks reminding him of Serenity once more.

Serenity giggled elatedly into his mouth as he kissed her. The visiting part of him cringed.

The light sounds of varied sizes of clothing dropping followed laughing pair to his bedroom and one final bouncy thump ended with the creak of his bed bounding back up under their weight. He sweetly devoured her creamy skin and spied her bright hair splayed across his covers and her perky chest. He felt like he was looking at the embodiment of autumn; the dryad of a sinuous tree in the season before winter.

He slowly watched her quickly unfold her soul in her eyes and lay it out for him to caress. A little more every night they spent naked. Until he knew her inside and out. He thought of the first night they’d connected as lovers and abruptly found himself wishing he could go back and do it all over again. Savour it more deeply. Draw it out into eternity.

He watched it all flutter fleetingly in his mind, his memory of their time together; he grasped at every second desperately, trying to dig his fingers into the past and hooking his nails into everything, many things, anything because he would take _anything_ ; a fight, a kiss, a climax, a trough, a word, a look, a lecture _any_ – god – _damn_ – thing he could hold onto.

Finally. The funeral came.

This memory was as foggy as the night, despite being the most recent. as if he’d tried his utmost to go through it with as little presence as possible. There was black all around him. Fluttering clothes were like bats in broad daylight. The flickering of the material about him reminded the piggybacking Joey of his time in the red-mist graveyard, when he’d realised he wasn’t really wearing clothes. The outfits flapped and changed with, and in between, every blink, his mind not comprehending that more than one outfit _couldn’t_ _fit_ on one being.

There were words and voices, none of them Serenity’s so none of them mattered, saying things. Giving condolences and sharing sadness. Weeping and claiming to weep with them but they were wrong. He hadn’t wept yet. He hadn’t accepted it yet. They couldn’t presume to join him in an activity he had yet to participate in.

He remembered looking down at the one thing that remained important to him, _real_ to him.

Annelle's hair reminded him of Serenity and he looked away in pain.

Never again. He could never really look at Annelle again, he realised. The ceremony ended in more of a blur, only this blur was greyer than the earlier contrast between the black of the mourners and the auburn of the season. It was tinged cloudy with rain.

Sleep claimed his sobbing daughter in their car as the mourners had gone on their way. He’d followed her or left with her, he couldn’t tell. But that’s how he got here. Under the dark sky and in the metal box he drove himself to work in. His only daughter, distraught, beside him.

It didn’t take another moment to pull her pale little face from his chest and smile brokenly at her dried eyes. He gently slotted her into the passenger seat and pulled the seatbelt across the wrinkles of her dark dress.

“Okay, daddy’s back Nelly. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“You thought I was mommy.” Annelle stated and Joey swallowed the ever-present grief at hearing his little girl’s voice and not the accompanying quip that Serenity had a habit of adding to every other sentence their baby girl had said since she could talk. She and Annelle would talk for ages.

“I’m sorry baby,” he stroked her smooth head, “daddy’s just a little frazzled today but I’ll get better, _we’ll_ get better. I promise.” He leaned over to kiss her pale forehead, reminded as he always was of Serenity’s skin under his lips.

Joey, the father, drove emptily and Joey, the college student - if his muddled memory was right, took a few seconds of assessment out of the corner of their shared eye to examine the girl beside him. He couldn’t help marvelling that this was what their child would look like if he and Serenity ever got together. He took the next moment to be severely disturbed by the thought of him and his sister hooking up. And the next was spent on quelling the nausea.

But he guessed that, in this reality, they’d just met as separate people and fallen in love. He could get behind that. Yet, now he wondered what his family was like in this world and if his parents were even still his parents.

Too occupied with their separate thoughts the Joeys could only abruptly jump back into awareness when headlights swung wildly towards them. Sound screeched into their ears as instincts took over and thoughts and mourning were put aside to wrench the steering wheel in the direction that would pull them away from inevitable collision. Annelle screamed and Joey felt a sharp urge to hug her body to him as the preventable became the unavoidable. It was unbelievably easy to pry his tensed fingers from the steering wheel to reach for his baby girl.

It was infinitely harder to reach her before the other car smashed into them with a scream of tortured metal and explosion of stressed glass. His eyes saw black before he could touch her skin.

Some _thing_ was steadily assaulting his senses.

Like a broken ceiling dripping raindrops onto his forehead, or a flashing light glaring fleetingly into his eyeballs, he heard the monitor blip with the beat of his heart rate.

“Annelle might make it.” a sonorous voice breathed in relief.

“Oh my god, really?” a feminine voice answered, tears already in its quavers. “Thank _god_!”

“Nelly’s going to be okay?” a young falsetto murmured in affirmation, “That’s great, daddy!” It rejoiced.

He was beginning to recognise the small family. They’d attended Ren’s funeral with him. The woman had been one who had insisted she was weeping alongside him. She was an old friend. Prone to emphatic declarations about friendship and the bonds between people. He sensed the concerned presences of Atem, Anzu and their ten-year-old boy, Yugi. Their histories floated before his closed eyes in the detached way memories seemed to do in his mind.

Atem had been a rich, Egyptian traveller and Anzu a bubbly Japanese waitress. They’d met at a burger joint in America and, despite a few break-ups and disputes along the way, they’d gotten married and had a sweet boy. Not too long before Serenity’s… funeral… they’d announced they were expecting again. A girl they were going to name Mana.

There was an odd and faint sound that he belatedly realised was Atem kissing Anzu. And a fleeting weight on the left side of his bed that he soon realised was Yugi attempting to sit up next to him when the boy was reprimanded for disturbing Uncle Joey.

He was honestly sad to feel the presence go but found that he couldn’t speak, move or open his eyes. There was a heavy weightlessness to his body. Like his consciousness was a cloud tethered to an immovable shell; trapped. He felt he should panic. But the darkness around him didn’t seem real yet and the voices beside him were all too tangible.

Once Yugi had been settled, the visiting Joey felt a ghost of a touch on his shoulder and jerked in surprise. Clutching the tingling skin of his ghostly form, he looked around to see what had nipped him before Atem’s voice reverberated a little closer to his head this time. He felt. But he still saw nothing. ‘Looking’ from his shoulder to above his head, where he felt the voices were coming from, he assumed Atem had gripped his body’s shoulder.

“Joey’s coma on the other hand…” he murmured mournfully, “the doctors say that it could last a while.”

There was a grief-ridden silence after the announcement but Joey himself was just eager to hear them talk more. He felt their presence bring him closer to opening his eyes with every word, good news or no.

“I hope he stays that way for a while.” A new member to the conversation interjected.

The voice was familiar. Of course it was. And it seemed that, in this reality, Seto Kaiba hated him again. Joey didn’t want to hear his friends speak anymore; he didn’t even want to wonder what Seto was doing beside his hospital bed in the first place.

“It’s best he doesn’t wake up after his wife has died just to hear his daughter is in critical condition- the high possibility of her recovery doesn’t change that fact.” Seto cut off a protestant reminder from Atem and continued.

“I… remember how I felt after Kisara died,” despite the cold tone of the statement, a partnership of sorrow formed between the two widowers in that moment, “I wouldn’t want to wake up from a coma the day after her funeral to hear that I might lose Mokuba too.” Joey could imagine the stoic man unconsciously shifting his eight year old son closer to his body and lightly digging his fingertips into the child’s shoulder.

“It would be worse for Joey,” Seto began to conclude, “He’d find some way to blame himself.”

“It is his fault anyway!” a grievously infuriated voice he recognised as Tristan's choked out, “The damn idiot should have called one of us or something! We’ve been through this before, he should know not to bottle it up like you did, he-,”

“Seeing how you seem to handle stress I doubt you would have been much help, we’d likely see a third patient in this hosp-,”

“-Shut up!” there was a quick and tense moment of silence in which he imagined someone holding Tristan back in some way.

“Shh, shh,” he couldn’t identify the voice immediately, but it was male, and suave in a way. “Keep it down for a bit. You can scream and rage at home, I’ll even drive you there myself, but this is a hospital, Tristan.”

Duke seemed to be soothing Tristan's outburst expertly. “And you,” he directed at the widowed businessman. “I know a lot of what Tristan just said was illogical but I also know that even you agree some of it is valid. You talk about Kisara so you have to realise that he’s talking through grief at the moment and not everyone can be an ice prince when people they love are dying.”

In the silence that followed he was sure Seto had clenched his teeth to jail all the derisive comments coming to mind in that second. Because he had them. But he recognised now was not the time.

Atem’s cousin had always had a problem with expressing emotion, according to the tanned prince of travel. He’d thought it was a miracle when his Japanese relative took a trip over to Egypt for the summer (“to get a tan that he never lost,” the man had snickered) and found another visitor to the golden sands. The two had hit it off immediately, went the story, Seto was an awkward but charming young ice prince and Kisara, a free-spirit; something like a sprite of snow.

No one knew she had albinism before the skin cancer.

It was kind of sad that Kaiba didn’t really have much to remember her by. Mokuba looked nothing like her and she wasn’t really fond of pictures. She acquiesced to the wedding day photo-shoot but besides that she’d left her family just a glass figurine of a dragon she’d spent months sculpting during an expedition, on the edge of a frozen lake. Seto, in an unexpectedly sentimental whim, had the ice encased in diamond before it could melt.

She’d insisted that it be thought of as a representation of her. Cool, protective, legendary; she’d wink. She’d wanted her family to remember her as strong. And as a fighter.

“You're right,” there was a minimal release of tension as people thought Seto was about to apologise and admit Tristan’s emotional outburst was accepted in the current situation. Both Joeys, however, felt the air radiating around the brunet and could only expect the worst.

“Joey _was_ an idiot. Because only idiots drive, grief-stricken, at night without enough presence of mind to protect what remains of their family,” Joey could imagine the derisive scowl. “Tristan’s not the only one who’s angry here. Why don’t you all admit what you're thinking?”

Joey could feel the accusation coming but it didn’t matter to him how much it would hurt. Seto always said the ugliest truths.

“It’s Wheeler’s fault Serenity died and it’s his fault that he’s in a coma. _He’s_ the reason their daughter is in critical condition and that there’s no other family to take care of her _if_ she survives.”

He felt the statements like knives of ice shooting into his unfeeling body.

“Joey single-handedly destroyed his own fam-,”

“Stop it!” a new voice hissed. Another spring-tight silence filled the gaps between Marik’s words.

“You guys really need to stop this now. Whatever the hell kind of bullshit is going on between you ‘ _friends’_ needs to get a paintbrush and put on the fakest smile since the first fucking clowns _right this moment_. Has no one else heard the theory that people in comas can hear things? Do you _want_ your friend to die surrounded by your shitty aura?”

Marik was a fairly new addition to the group and shamelessly believed in a bunch of spiritual superstitions. For the first time ever Joey was grateful to the coffee-skinned man for his quirks. Maybe the air could get lighter around him now so he could sit up-

The door slammed abruptly and a solemn quiet descended on the assembly of companions.

It was obvious who had left the room and Joey hated that the air lightened as if they’d gotten rid of some immense burden. The continuous murmur that his friends made sure to keep up became meaningless chatter in his head where he’d openly yearned for it earlier. It occurred to him that, despite their vehement disapproval of Seto’s accusations, no one had actually disagreed with him.

**_“Joey! Jooooeeeey!”_ **

That familiar growl of a voice grated against all his senses, making the blood quiver under his skin. His body was a tense, shivering ball of nervous tension as he huddled, clutching his knees, and clenched his elbows around his head. The fear felt to be a hundredfold worse than usual.

His muscles were so taut he was afraid they were going to tear into contracted stumps of dripping flesh. The echo in his ears was banging on his eardrums like the police on his dad’s door. His eyes refused to shut, however, and they streamed with terrified tears.

**_“Tell me if you can hear me!”_ **

**_“Hey!”_ **

**_“I’m calling you for a REASON!”_ **

**_“Do you WANT to die?”_ **

The beast roared; seemingly fed up with their perverted game of Marco polo.

**_“HUH, JOEY?”_ **

**_“ANSWER ME!”_ **

The dreadful voice began to warble and Joey wasn’t sure but… was it… crying?

 ** _“Joey…”_** it whined like a puppy searching for its master and with his following realisation he thought his muscles would actually snap with the speed of his explosion into motion.

He stood. He knew that voice. He knew it- it was a friend- one of his closest- it would help him- better yet, it _knew_ _how_ to help him. _He was saved!_

His fingers curled and clenched ceaselessly. Fear rattled like a million hard-shelled spiders scuttling over his skin but he resisted the urge to comfort himself by rubbing his arms. He knew for a fact now that the terror was an illusion, a play on his perceptions, from the ones who really wanted to keep him here. He didn’t understand everything just yet but all he had to do was _get to that voice_ and he would.

 ** _“Joey!”_** It had gone back to monotonous and increasingly hopeless hollers of Joey’s name but that would all change once Joey stepped out from behind his hid…


	12. Who Are We, Again?

A sound trekked up his throat.

It switched on the lights of wakefulness with every dragging step.

Laboriously, it climbed from between his lips.

He felt himself shift, unseeingly, into what felt like sitting.

An ache throbbed distantly in his body. This, he largely ignored.

The abrasive texture of skin approached his forehead and still eyelids.

Once the dry pads of flesh had settled decidedly onto the unfamiliar contours of his face, he chanced a glance at the light-rimmed darkness of his palm.

His curious nature soon swept his hand further down his face so his left eye could be harshly reprimanded by the sunlight unashamedly crowding the room.

Exacerbated by the white of walls and floor, the light paled the normally deep textures of a nearby pot plant. Whose leaves spread themselves a little too perfectly.

His gaze couldn’t bear, or care, to assess more and he closed his, now throbbing, eye. Becoming aware of a similar throbbing in his chest as it spread throughout his stomach and agitated his gut. He felt a heart beat in every organ; beneath various swathes of skin.

His breathing rate escalated. A faint, and soon annoying, beeping accompanied his inner body’s thudding pulses.

The darkness behind squeezed eyelids was familiar and yet the sheets beneath his hands an equal amount strange. He swallowed, he had a throat, and licked, he had a tongue, and bit at his lips, teeth in his mouth, all an attempt at halting a scream.

Confusion bubbled within his mind.

Name? I am… no name. Was I asleep? Is something wrong with me? Where am I? He could squint his eyes to check but light was painful. From the fog in his mind came more and more unanswerable questions until a stream of consciousness rushed to life and crashed through his mind.

Joey surfaced as an identity under a frantic ocean of unknowing and was almost immediately pulled back under by the questions.

Who are you? Joey? Is that you? Is that me? Am I Joey? Are we Joey?

And all he could reliably answer was no, no you’re not me- I’m not you- I don’t know who you are-.

The terror of being part of that growing sea of emotional and mental turmoil made his soul instinctively shove his thoughts back into the shape of himself to escape; and he watched, terrified, from the side lines. An increasingly tumultuous tide of question with question when answers could not be found to crash against. The lack of answers created an emptiness, the emptiness of new existence, in this mind. It was like a gun missing key complementary parts or the expectant faces of a drunken man’s… kids… when he… stumbled home…?

It occurred to Joey that he had some mental hitchhikers of his own. His memory of the hitman Dartz argued that his was a sufficient metaphor for pointing out the significance of having gaping holes in both consciousness and weaponry. Marik’s brother highlighted the similarities in his contribution; it was exactly the same wasn’t it? The probing, uncomfortable and answerless questions from innocent mouths. His father was like that, the asshole, but Marik always hated when he drank.

The background discussion with what could, disturbingly, now be called himself ended abruptly as the ocean of voices froze into silence. Like his host body, he chanced a glance at the door he had not noted on the left side of the room and observed it swinging open. Soon it welcomed a hand, collared by a white coat’s sleeve and followed, up and up, by a head bowed over a clipboard. The tall man was the saviour-like image of a doctor and all their hearts skipped. And yet, when he stepped into the room, a pool of fear seeped into the awakened man’s head.

The doctor used a long-fingered hand to brush a baby-blue lock of hair from an amber eye before lifting that golden yellow gaze in tandem with its incongruent partner, crystal blue, to regard the patient. Doctor Dartz’ heterochromic eyes widened in surprise at seeing his charge awake. Joey, both he and his host body, felt their heartbeat bang against the fragile, shivering bones in their chest.

That smile was just a fake application of friendliness, Joey warned. Dartz was no doctor, Joey remembered that much. He was here to kill them. For some reason this time _they_ were important in this reality. They were his target. Don’t let the half-moon glasses fool you – he has perfect eyesight.

Joey’s host consciousness ignored his fervent assertions of fear in favour of addressing the one symbol of safety he could recognise in that moment. The brightly smiling doctor.

His mouth opened to form words, the energy bulged in different shapes around his uncertain throat until he spoke.

“Hi,” he lifted one of his arms slightly and then dropped it back down in some incomplete notion of a wave. The doctor – Dartz – ‘s smile quirked higher on one edge of his mouth and his mismatched eyes seemed to twinkle.

“Who am I?” the patient got out with surprising ease considering the fact that the sea of queries in his mind was shivering and twitching like a shoal of fish in a butterfly net.

The twinkle dimmed a bit at these words and the doctor tapped his clipboard nervously a few times before measuredly approaching his patient with a bit of a forlorn air.

“Ah,” he breathed, “I’m afraid we were hoping you would be the one to tell _us_.”

The unnamed man’s lips quivered and he searched his mind but could only find the identity that had separated itself from him earlier. The ‘Joey’ at the back of his empty mind urged him both not to trust this man and not to mention the identity.

“I,” he croaked, “I don’t…”

The doctor nodded in sympathy and gave a reassuring smile, reaching out to pat his patient’s hand comfortingly. The unnamed man flinched away from the touch and almost immediately regretted it. The doctor pressed his lips together and looked down sadly.

“I’m sorry,” he withdrew his arm and lightly picked up a visitor’s chair to move it to a safe distance from the blank man’s bed. He sighed in relief as he sat and let a comfortable smile cross his face.

“You’re not my first patient of the day,” he chuckled, “I’ve got a biker with a concussion and quite the mouth,” his smile widened, “charming young man.”

The unnamed man smiled in response; it was troubled but positive.

“You,” the doctor continued on a slightly lower note, “don’t have to stick with me, you know?”

He met his patient’s doe-brown eyes with warmth, “I can transfer you to another doctor if you’re uncomfortable with me-,”

“N-no!”

The patient ignored the mental glare he was getting from the second mind in his head. It could be malicious. He could have some sort of mental disorder, schizophrenia or something; he needed to get help from the world outside his head.

“I- I’m sorry for earlier. I… um, I _remember_ you, uh f-,” he paused and put a hand to his head in an attempt to explain while getting across that the voice in his head wasn’t telling him to kill anybody or anything, “it’s like something in my head remembers you from somewhere and it’s a bad memory and there’s hurt and distrust. I-I don’t know what it _is_ but it’s like a separate… identity in my head.”

Dartz’s expression was curious but not disbelieving or scared. He hmmed and jotted down a note on his clipboard.

“Does this separate identity have a name, maybe?”

The unnamed man nodded and told of the ‘Joey’ that had woken up with him but refused to be recognised as him. Joey sat silent at the back of the sea, letting detached thoughts float over him in the settling waters. He tried not to move and not to speak any more warnings, shaking previous lives out of his head with some difficulty. Until an uncontrollable question burst forth from his experiences.

“Where’s my daughter?” the words slipped out to mutual confusion in the room.

“Are you remembering something?”

“Uh… no. No, that didn’t come from me. Or maybe it did I- I don’t know how much of me is him.”

Dartz glanced down at his notepad while he spoke, “So, this identity has a bad experience with me and a daughter?”

His patient shook fluffy blond locks. He touched them and examined the strands. He smiled. This felt familiar to him. It was a familiarity felt by both him and Joey. Their body felt like theirs.

“No,” he eventually answered with an easier posture, “he’s telling me it doesn’t matter what he’s experienced. He can only tell me things that I’m not, but he’s here to help. He says he’ll be gone by the time I fall asleep tonight.” He didn’t want to risk giving this unnamed Joey the wrong identity. It wouldn’t be the first universe where he didn’t have the name ‘Joey’ and he didn’t even know what he _was_ at the moment. He _felt_ human but that proved nothing.

Dartz pause was as professional as it could get after hearing all of that, but he nodded gently. He stood and said the hospital would need to do some preliminary psychological evaluations nonetheless and that a nurse would be by shortly to hand him some paperwork.

The man smiled faintly. Dartz smirked back warmly.

“You’ll have your answers in no time, son. Rebecca is a prodigy of Freudian proportions,” he chuckled and whispered, “though don’t tell her I said that,” he winked. “I just have to check with the fund to see how long we can place you under care and hold out hope that your loved ones come looking for you here.”

He wanted to ask what fund this was but there was a more pressing question on his mind, a plea for any and all information about him.

“Ah wait,” he called after the turning doctor. Dartz turned back around inquisitively and nodded.

“Um, what, what _do_ you know about me? If… you don’t know my name.”

Dartz thought on this for a second and, with a glance to his clipboard to check if his facts were right, began to explain his patient’s arrival.

“A few days ago, two actually, you showed up on a gurney with a moderate head injury and some cuts and bruises. You were wearing casual clothing, so no uniform to indicate a profession, sorry. You’d been stripped of all kinds of identification, driver’s license, I.D., business cards,” he shrugged emphatically here to show that they had done a thorough investigation on his person to find his identity, “and so on.”

The unnamed Joey bit his lip.

“The hospital’s cameras picked up a figure in a trench coat and dark hoodie dropping you off; but, the figure was too obscure to be identified. The police should be investigating your situation soon, now that you’ve woken up.”

He took the information with a nod, relieved that if there was someone, somewhere, who cared enough to drop him off at a hospital; they would likely come visit him as well. He smiled at the doctor, indicating that he felt better after hearing the story.

Dartz smiled in return and indicated a pile of magazines on the manoeuvrable tray attached to his patient’s bed and then to a small TV placed above him.

“You should be able to keep yourself otherwise entertained for the day. I’ll be back this evening to run another check-up like the one we had while we were talking okay? So it’ll be quick and non-invasive. You’ve healed remarkably well, my boy.”

The patient nodded with his smile still in place and watched the doctor leave, the waves in his mind less turbulent and his heart calmed.

His second identity was somewhat… well, the complete opposite.

Joey felt nervous stress crawl on his imagined skin, causing his host to rub his arms and give a shuddering breath. He didn’t mean to further stress the lost man but he didn’t know what to do about the next time he bridged realities. Sure, he’d recently broken through the unnatural fear he always experienced in the desert between dimensions; but he’s seen now that whenever he attempts to make contact with his only chance out of this insane reality trip he gets pushed into the next one.

And now he couldn’t think of a way to combat what was keeping him moving through the realities because he didn’t know what it was. His only source of information was impossible to contact. The only thing he could hope for at this rate was landing in another creature learned in dimensional travel.

Joey’s thoughts and the unnamed man’s TV programme were interrupted by another visitor at that moment and their mutual attention turned to a man in a black trench coat, open-collar white shirt and leather pants. They soon couldn’t see his shoes, as he swiftly approached with a wide smile on his face. But he may have been barefoot or a ghost for how silently he travelled.

A sense of apprehension settled into the bones of both identities, an instinctual response to the sinister smirk on the pale visitor’s face. But the unnamed Joey chewed his lip and bit back his fear as he remembered the doctor mentioning that figure in a trench coat. And he let himself hope; somewhere underneath the tension.

The man smiled down at him and both Joeys couldn’t help noticing that his canines were unnaturally long. He slipped silently into the visitor’s chair and crossed one leg over the other, grinning all the while as if he’d won the lottery. His voice was a punctuated growl, not one vowel or consonant going unexpressed. They frowned as the accent both Joey’s registered was a British one.

“Good afternoon, old friend,” he stared straight into the unnamed man’s eyes. Bright brown met dark brown and widened in delight.

“You know who I am?” he asked hopefully and the strange man appeared taken aback for a second.

“ _That_ head injury caused you memory loss?”

The unnamed Joey nodded vigorously and immediately regretted it as a wave of dizziness accompanied a bout of nausea. The stranger frowned in concern before closing his slightly gaping mouth thoughtfully.

“Well,” he appeared to be adjusting to the information, “we’ve been associates for years; I can tell you all you need to know,” he went on easily and, without a blink or stutter, said, “your name is Jounouchi Katsuya, Jou or Jouno to your friends, of which you don’t have many,” he spread his hands in almost jovial apology. “In my experience you have never met someone you’ve been intimate enough with to be allowed to call you by your first name, ‘Katsuya’.”

Delight warmed the newly named man from his belly to his throat. Jounouchi Katsuya. He swallowed.

“Over the years you’ve told me that your mother was Japanese and your father, an American. You lived in Japan until you were seven,” the Brit delivered with a pale hand on his chin, as if reminiscing.

“When your mother left you and your father,” unnamed Joe- Jounouchi’s face fell, “your father decided to move back to America with you. You grew up in increasingly decrepit homes until your father died of alcohol poisoning; when you were nineteen.” The warmth in his body turned to grief-stricken horror. “At which point you were part of a local gang that failed to protect you when your father’s creditors came after you for their money.”

The unname- Jounouchi’s expression had gradually progressed from excited to disbelief to despaired as the stranger told his miserable life story in offhand summary.

“This is where I arrive,” he introduced his role in the story as nonchalantly as the rest of Jounouchi’s life. “At this point in time I was apprentice to this particular overarching organisation, the one your father short-changed. I saw what a fight you put up and admired your spunk enough to convince the, then, leader to have you trained instead of beaten as, yet another, redundant example.”

Jounouchi blinked.

“From that point forward,” the pale man swept his arms out in a modest gesture of welcome, “you have been faithfully serving my organisation.”

Jounouchi let out a shuddering sigh and clutched his bedsheets as turmoil roiled throughout his mind once more.

“I’m a-a… criminal?”

“As you’d always say,” the white-haired visitor approximated an American accent of some kind; “ ‘Ya gotta do what ya need ta do to survive.”

The newly named man sat up straight at that. The phrase felt familiar, connected to the self buried under the confusion.

The British man gave a low chuckle and sat back amiably; “You did tell me once that you wanted to be a policeman,” he laughed, “it’s too late for that now, the things you’ve done.” His easy laughter trailed off into a menacing smile.

“And… who, exactly, are you?”

“Always sharp, Jounouchi,” the man chuckled at himself. It ended in a smirk. “I am, generally, called Bakura.”

Jounouchi nodded blankly at his sheets, struggling to believe.

“Take your time Jounouchi,” Bakura sounded surprisingly compassionate for a criminal, “this must be difficult to take in at once. I’m sorry to be so blunt.”

Jounouchi immediately shook his head while contrarily clutching the sheets above his thighs.

“From what you tell me I’ve… been through; I can handle this,” he assured the white-haired man. “I just need some time to get readjusted, maybe some refresher courses in what I used to do,” he gave an unsure quirk of his lip, “I’m likely not to be up to standard,” his heart beat unevenly in protest. He felt denial at the corners of his being and misery at the centre.

The ghostly man gave him a white smile.

Jounouchi searched for the only other informant he had and asked him if he believed any of what the fair-skinned man sitting before him was saying. He turned his head slightly away from Bakura’s piercing gaze and waited. Joey, carefully, shared his experience across their communal mind. He had a vague recollection of a Bakura and a bad feeling about him. So, him being a criminal kingpin was believable. And when Joey thought on how his entire turnabout of morality was hinged on Yugi, emphasised by his time in the wedding universe; he could, reluctantly, believe that he became a criminal in at least one of the endless universes he could possibly encounter. It was neither a yes nor a no but it made the sinister man’s story fairly plausible so Jounouchi could only smile bitterly at the hand fate had dealt him and blink furiously.

“You work too hard Jouno,” he jumped when the man’s gruff tone brought him back to awareness, “you need a break after what the cops did to you on your last mission.”

Bakura stood and half-turned to the door.

“I have some clothes for you. You’re getting discharged early,” he shot another white smile over his shoulder, “ _I_ believe that you have a perfect bill of health.”

Jounouchi frowned lightly, his eyes examining the four corners of the hospital room as he hadn’t noticed the other carry anything other the clothes on his back on his casual way in, but began to climb out of the hospital bed anyway. His forehead began to throb. It felt like someone was trying to blow up a balloon inside his skull. The pale man soon reappeared with a green hoodie, blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt. The last item dropped before him was a pair of scuffed sneakers, he slipped his feet into them easily and bounced in them experimentally. They were obviously his.

The extra evidence made it easier to believe Bakura’s outlandish story. His heart didn’t calm, however. He tried his best not to move his head too much or fall over.

A gulped protest went unnoticed as he followed after the pale man, about half a head shorter than him. He examined the other closely and noted that the raised white bangs and the wild hair added about half a head of height to the Brit and barely held back a grin at being so much taller than his ‘boss’.

They casually slipped out of his room which, he noticed when he glanced back briefly, was number 116. He swallowed once more as he turned away from the only familiar place his mind had acquired his hand slipping across the surface layer of paint, a final goodbye, as he apprehensively pushed forward.

He, somewhat, steadily followed Bakura through the halls of the hospital despite feeling certain that the wrong leg moved whenever he took a step. There was also the matter that he felt cheated out of an escape from his purportedly dangerous lifestyle that would have been found through his memory loss. He sulked at the notion of being robbed of a vacation.

Stupid human characteristic of needing memories to have an identity.

“… that’s what he looks like.”

Joey’s heart tripped and he nearly followed suit. His mind took him to the strongest memory he had yet of the brunet: screams tickled his ears like ghost breath raising goosebumps on his skin.

“Name’s Joey Katsuya,” a second brunet said, tone a little less formal than his partner, “this is one of the closest hospitals to where it all went down, we’re searchin’ all of them.”

His hand drifted up to the rim of the hoodie framing his face. He couldn’t tell whether it was there to pull it further over his features or to fling it back until he had a full, unobstructed, view of the pair of inquiring men just steps away.

“You’re in luck,” the friendly receptionist smiled and drawled at the handsome pair, “I was on duty when he was brought in. He should still be in a coma but you can check room 116,” Joey startled and Jounouchi faltered. They let themselves take an actual eye to the scene and watched the dark-haired woman lean toward one of the men purposefully, “come back and check with me if you don’t find him there.”

Of the pair of cops, the brown-eyed brunet eyed the emerald-eyed receptionist with a vaguely lecherous smile and answered, “even if he _is_ in there, _I’ll_ come back down to see you,” he smiled charmingly, “Duchess, wasn’t it?”

She smirked at him, the dark-haired beauty obviously experienced with men attracted to her. The second brunet rolled his blue eyes.

Bakura surreptitiously slipped a clipboard onto the far and blind side of the receptionist’s desk, on top of a pile of similar slabs of wood. Jounouchi’s eyes narrowed, remembering Dartz’s clipboard from that morning. He distantly heard the men thank the woman on the other end of the counter and begin to banter on their way to the elevator as they finally surreptitiously passed each other.

“The _one_ time I lend you my partner, Tristan,” the stoic cop’s voice was strained. “Your first case together, the two of you tango with the Thief King’s Syndicate and Jo ends up in a coma.”

He could hear an edge of serious concern in the blue-eyed man’s voice as he ranted at the brown-eyed one named Tristan who crossed his arms and looked away.

“We’re just a bit rusty all right,” he defended. He slapped his hand onto the sterner man’s back, “it’s just one slip up; we’ll be a well-oiled machine way before your promotion, Kaiba.”

“You’re lucky I don’t just take him back from you,” the blue-eyed brunet huffed as they stepped into the elevator; Joey and Jounouchi’s further attention was diverted by the sudden appearance of direct sunlight. Bakura looked back at Jounouchi with a light grin and an outstretched hand.

“Let’s celebrate your recovery Jounouchi.”


	13. Are We Your Brother?

“I’ll help you spruce up your wardrobe, get ready for a new lease on life,” Bakura winked at him with the wide, white grin he seemed prone to. Jounouchi wondered how someone could look so much like a ghost.

“And then we can go to,” a twinkle entered his mischievous brown eyes, “Paradius.”

 _Paradius?_ The pair of identities questioned simultaneously but didn’t object to being tugged in a certain direction. Jounouchi trustingly followed Bakura as Joey fretted over the conversation between Seto and Tristan. He couldn’t be the only one thinking that Jounouchi Katsuya was a different Katsuya altogether with friends, possibly detectives, instead of a dangerous criminal boss on the lookout for him.

Maybe this Joey, Jounouchi that is, was just being deceived by Bakura?

It could happen. Maybe he should actually be with Seto and Tristan? The stories he’d been exposed to so far were somewhat similar. He almost wanted to turn around and get Jounouchi to talk to the familiar pair but that was an absurd thing to ask a possible criminal to do. What if he was wrong? He didn’t want to spend the day in a jail cell.

Bakura pulled the still-tentative Jounouchi into a whirlwind of expensive clothing stores until he was decked out in a blue silk shirt, a white jacket and a pair of pants the British man called chinos in a darker shade of blue than his shirt. This, as well as swapped out his comfortable black and white sneakers for more formal-seeming shoes apparently made out of snakeskin.

They arrived at Paradius in a discreet but expensive black car. The same that, earlier, took the rest of the expensive clothes Jounouchi had spontaneously been gifted with to what was going to be his new apartment.

He took a deep breath as the sleek machine slipped away silently, reminding him of his employer somehow, as the ghost of a man swept toward the building before them. Bakura had informed him that the police had already been to his old apartment and ransacked the place. The shorter gangster apparently had barely enough luck to grab some of Jounouchi’s clothes.

Jounouchi felt a scowl coming on about not being able to go back to his place and try to _remember_ instead of be _told_ about his life.

The sun was setting behind the garnished building; it looked like something out of the Victorian era and was likely modelled to do so. The interior, however was arrayed with neon lights and transparent, polymer stages, lit by various rich colours.

Bakura immediately made way for the VIP area of Paradius, ignoring the girls on stage. Once they were seated it only took seconds for a scantily clad woman with sizeable breasts and an hourglass silhouette to approach and smirk down at them seductively.

“What can I get you boys?” her voice was a low and casual drawl and sent a shiver down Jounouchi’s spine, in a _really_ good way.

Bakura considered the awestruck man and smirked.

“The usual for me, Mai, and two fresh ones for my old friend here,” he gestured at a startled Jounouchi.

To Mai’s credit she did not raise an eyebrow or give any indication that this was strange other than an easily overlooked pause. She withdrew with a red-lipped smile.

“I-I don’t think I’d like-,”

“Oh, Mai will get you just what you need. She introduced me to my Egyptian beauty.”

“I just don’t think I could be comfortable-,”

“Oh I knew you’d be a prude about this, Jouno, but I didn’t think you’d completely back out,” Jounouchi found himself feeling slightly _ashamed_ at not complying now, “at least meet the girls before you waste my money.”

Jounouchi sat back into the form-fitting purple couch resignedly.

The curtains parted slowly and in stepped a tan woman with blonde hair and amethyst purple eyes.

Her eyeliner was drawn in a tapering line from the corner of her eyes, down along the curve of her regal cheek bones and then parallel to the slope of her eye. She had copious amounts of gold jewellery: a choker made of numerous gold bands. Two upper arm bands, a series of well-fitted gold bands from her left wrist to her elbow and another gold band around her right ankle tubed around her like desert snakes.

She was clad in a sheer, lilac waistcoat. It was open in front and baring her pierced nipples from which hung two ropes of flat gold, the second rope swinging below a bellybutton ring in the shape of an eye. Her lilac skirt had slits on both sides of her body up until the golden waistband of the silky material.

Her nonchalant eyes skipped over him entirely and brightened when she spied the grinning Bakura. She approached him like a queen, head held high and hips swaying hypnotically until she sat gracefully by his side. Jounouchi was surprised to note that she deliberately left space between them and Bakura automatically pouted but shuffled closer obediently so that she rested her head contentedly in the crook between his chest and his arm, her blonde hair tickled Bakura’s nose, making him wriggle it in annoyance but he quickly took a light breath and smiled headily, kissing the top of her head.

Jounouchi was in the perfect position, opposite the couple, to see the little smile and immediate glow on the Egyptian woman’s face.

He was about to ask a question when a tinkling sound caught his ear.

The curtain parted once more and a pale hand drifted the rich fabric to the left to reveal a young woman, around the age of the Egyptian beauty, with a hazel bob-cut, dusted with various colours. She looked like the kind of girl you’d find at a music festival. Following her was a much younger girl with long, auburn hair woven with twinkling diamonds.

His eyes trailed down each girl almost helplessly. The brunette wore neon blue heels with straps swirling up until her knee where they were tied in a stringy bow. He blushed furiously at seeing that she was wearing something like a pastel pink leotard that slowly reduced to string over her shoulders. Even though it thickened gradually the further down her body it went, her skin was bared in copious amounts until dangerously far below her belly button. Attached securely only to the top of her shoulder, and reaching her wrists, were rainbow tinted, diaphanous sleeves which matched two flares of the same material attached to the edge of the blue stretch of material that rimmed her hips. She was either a genie or an aerobics instructor from the 80s.

His face flared red and his brain short circuited when she turned to sit down beside him and he found that the strings that went over her shoulders met around her mid-back and joined a third string that went the rest of the way down and disappeared between two considerable mounds of flesh.

With the younger girl he started from the bottom; almost afraid of what he would see. Black heels and white socks stretched up to her thighs. Held up by lacy, black suspenders that disappeared into a white mini-skirt before reappearing in a pathway over her, he gulped, medium-sized breasts; it gave her the barest hint of decency. Below her breasts and connecting the two parallel lacy straps was a third, and above them was larger stretch of the same lace. Her long, auburn hair, intertwined with diamonds, flowed like a red waterfall over her creamy shoulders and she smiled tentatively, her face clothed in nothing but lip gloss.

Joey was horrified.

As a result Jounouchi couldn’t stop staring at her face, Serenity’s face, his _sister_.

Joey’s heart clenched and he _really_ didn’t want to be there anymore. He closed Jounouchi’s eyes and tried; hoped, prayed, concentrated, _strained_ to jump to another reality but she was still seated there, staring curiously up at him as he silently stared down at her.

Jounouchi was trembling. He smiled shakily and opened his mouth to say thank you but no thank you when Joey stepped in and stopped him, asking him what would happen if he said no. Where would Téa and Serenity go? _Who_ would they go to?

Jounouchi breathed deep and met Bakura’s playful eyes, “What? No drinks?” he said instead.

Bakura’s smile flickered and then widened, “You can ask the girls or you can press the button embedded in the table, it calls over a waitress.”

Jounouchi nodded and pressed the button. Bakura smirked.

“Already attached, eh?” the blond looked up, “I told you Mai would bring you just what you need.”

Jounouchi laughed weakly.

“I haven’t introduced you,” Bakura began, “Jounouchi, this is Marika,” he gently stroked the Egyptian woman’s cheek and she leaned into his touch before setting her gaze on him. Her voice was a feminine growl, slightly sweeter than Mai’s.

“It’s nice to meet you; Bakura's told me all about his favourite agent. It’s too bad about your last mission but you must be strong to be back on your feet already.”

“Ah,” he almost didn’t know how to take this, “thank you,” he answered politely, trying not to stare at her face. As scantily clad as she was, the most beautiful part of her body was her face, she was utterly hypnotising and vaguely reminded Joey of Ishizu. This caught his attention. Yes, she had Ishizu’s nose and most definitely her ears but looked more like if Marik were a woman.

Oh god no.

She smiled at him gently, unaware of his internal horror and puzzlement, and turned back to Bakura to continue the conversation he’d probably interrupted.

“So your name’s Jounouchi, right?” he jumped and glanced sharply to his right, at Téa. She leaned against his arm sensually, “My name’s Téa.”

“I’m Serenity,” he felt the same pressure against his left arm and stiffened.

“So what’s this mission Mari’s talking about?” Téa asked and he licked his lips nervously. He laughed just as nervously before he answered.

“I actually don’t remember; it went so bad that I fell into a coma and only woke up this morning with memory loss so I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about myself.”

Téa looked shocked, he glanced to his left and Serenity looked genuinely saddened.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely and he felt a smile tug at his lips.

“It’s all right,” he told her, “you girls will just have to tell me about yourselves,” he segued awkwardly.

Téa looked a bit apprehensive about the way this conversation was going.

Joey’s beer arrived and he immediately looked up at the waitress’s face alone and avoided seeing anything else, she gazed back at him attentively.

“Could you, uh, get me a whiskey? And keep it coming?”

She smirked immediately, nodded and asked Bakura for his order before departing. He took his first sip of his drink and finally felt an easy smile slip across his face. He relaxed back into his chair and turned to Téa first.

“What do you dream of being one day?”

She blinked in surprise, expecting to be asked why she did what she did, having expected a dirty joke and already prepared a sparkling laugh. She felt a little pull at the corners of her mouth and detached from Jounouchi’s arm a little.

“I’ve always wanted to be a dancer…”

***

"This part’s illegal,” Bakura informed him as they stumbled down a secretive passageway of rooms, “this is why Mai gives me special treatment, she’d be out of a respectable establishment if I didn’t make sure word doesn’t get too far.”

The man stopped at a door and rapped on it, “have fun,” he smirked back at a dazed Jounouchi and his pair of companions, “you start that training you asked for tomorrow. Valon’s in the hospital because of some stupid bike stunt so I’ll send you off to Raphael for basics before you can spar again.

Jounouchi nodded numbly and followed the girls’ lead into the empty room as Bakura moved further down the hallway with the beautiful Mari.

He moaned in relief when he saw the bed, quickly pulling off his white jacket as he stepped off his expensive shoes, he shamelessly leaped for it. Within seconds he had settled himself in and pretended to doze off.

It took a few minutes of cautious waiting and waving their hands in front of his face before the girls settled in around him and began talking.

“He was so nice to us,” he heard Serenity’s voice behind his head and felt an absent-minded hand begin to rhythmically run through his hair.

“Nah,” he heard a click and soon smelled cigarette smoke, “we’re just lucky he was in more of a mood to drink than to fuck,” the profanity hit him in the gut as she spoke; she sounded so hopeless, “there’s no such thing as nice men around _here_. Nice men don’t know about this part of the club.”

There was silence from Serenity’s end but her hand didn’t stop.

“You got that message to your brother, right? I still think it’s fucked up that you had to meet your dad here but pretty awesome that he recognised you even though it’s been, what, ten years?”

Serenity’s laugh cracked, “yeah, fifteen,” she mumbled.

Téa was immediately on alert, “What’s wrong Ren? Your dad passed the message on didn’t he? You’re going to see your long lost brother; he’ll come get you and right the wrong your mom did to you,” her voice was a somewhat hysterical huff.

He heard a shifting and whimpering and imagined Serenity shaking her head. A drop of water dripped onto his cheek and she gasped and quickly wiped it away.

“Ren?” Téa became more insistent, “what happened? What don’t I know?”

“We,” Serenity hiccupped, “we haven’t been able to see each other for a few days but I thought you would hear about it anyway.”

“What do you mean, Ren?”

“A few days ago,” her voice was quivering, “he came…” she whispered through her tears.

“What? How do you know?”

“I heard it. I was too afraid to look but I heard his name; he was with his partner and got cut off on his way here. I don’t know how he knew,” more tears fell onto his face now but she didn’t bother wiping them off again, “I don’t know how Bakura knew he was coming to get me, I think he was watching my brother especially for some reason.”

She took in a shuddering, rasping breath.

“They fought. There were gunshots and things breaking and-and it sounded like an even match up but… when I _did_ look out, to check… I saw a guy getting up and I hoped but- he looked around and called for Joey,” Jounouchi twitched, “and I knew that he was gone… my brother’s _gone_.”

He heard Téa quickly grab Serenity and pull her close above him. He wished he was smaller so he wouldn’t be in their way.

“I’m sorry Ren,” her voice quaked in sympathy, “I’m so sorry.”

“Now I’ll never get to see him again,” Serenity tried to wail softly, “I don’t even remember how he _looks_ , Téa!”

“I know, Ren, I know. I’m sorry.”

Téa whispered comforting things to her young friend until Jounouchi fell into an uneasy sleep under the shelter of their pain.

**“Okay, okay,”** the previously terrifying voice warbled, **“I’ll let you know when I sense him but I can’t guarantee anything,”** the creature turned forlorn, **“I haven’t been able to find him for the past week. He won’t answer me.”**

Joey didn’t hesitate this time. He jumped into motion and sprinted, searching for the shape of his friend, his familiar, his dragon, his-

“ _Red-Eyes_!” he howled wildly at the shadowy creature in the distance. It instantly perked up.

**“Joey?”**

“ _Yeah!_ ” he hollered jubilantly. He’d made contact! He’d gotten to Red-Eyes!

“It’s me!” he screamed as he got closer and closer.

 **“ _It is!_ ”** Red-Eyes howled back, **“It’s him, it’s Joey, I’ve found him!”**

There was a quick pause that Red-Eyes then replied to, **“of course.”**

“Eh?” Joey pulled a confused expression, “Who’re ya talkin’ to?”

 **“Ah, Bl-ow!”** there was another pause, **“that doesn’t matter, you’ve been in a coma for a week Joey-,”** _“What?”_ **“We’re all trying to bring you back but your soul is hurtling through dimensions right now, making you really hard to find.”**

“I know!” he slowed down as he approached the shadowy form and came to a stop in front of it. He had been hoping that Red-Eyes could see him this way but the dragon just swung its hazy head from side to side. Turns out it really was just a giant shadow.

**“That isn’t good Joey. At this rate you’ll become prey to-,”**


	14. Man in the Mirror

His eyes flew open as twin shoves pushed him backwards a few steps.

Dazed, he looked around, wide-eyed; seeing himself by way of the reflective building on his right, as he turned around to catch sight of what hit him, he noted two briskly trotting women converge on each other and begin talking again.

He shook his head at his absentmindedness, glanced around to get his bearings and continued on his way, the streets starting to get packed with foot traffic. He scowled as he had to dodge what seemed to be another ruthless walker and frowned up at the encroaching light on the edge of the cityscape.

He levelled his gaze and passed the skyscraper beside him and Joey bumped into the glass.

He jerked back and looked around. On his right was a cloudy darkness and behind him were forms within the darkness. He looked to his left and saw the busy Domino street in the throes of morning traffic. He looked ahead and saw himself reaching the end of the road he was crossing and stepping onto the pavement. He blinked.

He opened his eyes in the window of the shop across the street and gasped rapidly as he struggled to take in the new area as quickly as possible. His body certainly didn’t care much; walking at a brisk pace that made Joey feel like he was gliding along the reflective surface beside him.

Behind him, and strangely only to his left, was the skyscraper he’d been trapped in a few seconds ago. At his left shoulder was himself, walking. He looked down at his own body and realised that he wasn’t consciously choosing to walk; he was just imitating the him on his left.

When the end of the window began to approach Joey flinched and waited for the windowpane to smack into him. He tensely glanced around when he instead passed effortlessly through to the next window. He let himself exhale shakily before instinctively tensing when the next windowpane came. He passed through without a hitch and relaxed his fists fractionally.

It happened again, and again and again until he finally relaxed his whole body. It seemed the reason he’d come up at the wall earlier was because he was _trying_ to walk.

This figured out, he attempted to understand what he was. Because he certainly wasn’t the thirty-year old man deftly navigating the busy street.

He didn’t think he was in a parallel dimension within a parallel dimension; that would just be too confusing. Black clouds floated between his fingers as he stretched them into the misty darkness on his right curiously. He grinned at the sensation but jerked in terror when the tendrils of smoke crawled under his clothes like they had a life of their own. His shoulder jarred with the effort he made to pull his arm back.

They slunk across his skin like thick veins until they thoroughly wrapped around his neck. He struggled against the urge to hyperventilate while the grey coils constricted and his breaths became quicker and then frantic when a stream of shadow separated from its friends and extended before his eyes. It approached his face and stroked it gently, once.

The clouds dissipated instantly.

He thought on it for a second as he rasped uncontrollably and passed through another reflective surface while screwing his face up in confusion.

Maybe he was a reflection?

What a weird concept to conceive right after one was nearly choked by affectionate shadows; but it did seem to add up.

His form seemed to be confined to only windows and other reflective surfaces. He found that, when his body pulled out his cell phone during his walk, he could instantaneously see his face from the point of view of the device for a few seconds before the little thing came to life and the extra light obscured his vision. He could see this and the point of view from the window simultaneously.

It was, he found, the most disconcerting thing about this reality, that is, until his body actually turned to enter one of the shops.

He swayed and shivered, feeling butterflies twisting like a knife in his gut as his body stepped into what looked like a café and approached a sizeable line for his morning coffee. Once Joey got his bearings from where he was stuck in the window he watched, bored, as his body got more and more excited to get to the front of the line.

Boy, he really liked coffee in this reality.

Joey wished he could go back to when he used to wake up in a new reality. Seeing things from his body’s point of view was less disconcerting and somewhat less boring. He tilted his head and stuck his tongue out in thought; there was no reason he couldn’t try.

He closed his eyes, breathed out slowly and loosened his muscles. There was a sensation around his form like he was being squeezed through a doorway and then slipped into a comfortable jacket and jeans.

It made him smile contentedly and he opened his eyes and grinned wider. Now he could see what was so damn interesting at the end of the endless line, first hand.

His body looked around in agitation and he, with it. This wait wasn’t just making _him_ impatient.

At long last there was only one person left in front of him and he bounced on his soles in anticipation. He almost cheered or fist-pumped in victory when the amazon in front of him clacked off, some complex concoction in her talon-tipped hand.

He walked forward with huge grin on his face as he caught sight of Seto Kaiba.

Joey, the reflection, wanted to sigh so deeply that he would die of asphyxiation. But he didn’t get a chance to as their bodies’ eyes met and he abruptly learned, right then and there, that eyes were truly the windows to the soul.

Joey’s chest clenched and he gasped and blinked until he adjusted to the fact that he was reflected in Seto’s irises. He didn’t have time for punny jokes but he allowed the one that followed because he didn’t think there would be a more perfect time to note that he had become the apple of Seto Kaiba’s eye. He allowed himself a chuckle.

He heard his voice cheerfully greet the barista and the usually haughty Kaiba greet back warmly. This Seto had a soft warmth to him. His smile was small but it glowed; his movements were calculated and graceful but not forceful. He stood straight, proud, but not haughty.

“The usual, Seth.”

“You don’t think I know that, Jo?” Seth smirked as he got to work and quickly glanced over to the second barista. A young man with tattoos worthy of biker gang member threw his leather jacket into the staff room as he arrived early for his shift. Seth didn’t look over but, “Thanks Atem,” he called to his relative and the tan man waved a nonchalant hand.

“What are cousins for?” Atem tied an apron around his waist, completing the statement with, “ _other_ than covering for their crushing relative while they talk to their inappropriately aged male suitor.”

Joey, the reflection, was the only one who heard this (well, besides the anonymous flushed businessman waiting for his coffee from the exotic muttering barista) and he simply rolled his eyes at yet another universe where the pair of them were in love. It was surprising he hadn’t popped into a universe where they were happily married with three kids yet. He was beginning to think that he lived in the only universe where the pair of them still disliked each other.

And even that seemed to be in jeopardy.

As he frowned over his changing opinion of his most vehement rival something moved in his reflected eye.

He looked up, and squinted, and maybe, if he wasn’t crazy, there was a person reflected in _his_ body’s eyes. A little Seto Kaiba.

But that couldn’t be possible. Joey hadn’t seen any other reflections since coming to this reality. He checked his back and found the cloudy darkness. Every other reflective surface met his expectation for the appearance of a person. He found none.

Maybe the eyes worked differently?

“How were your exams?” he distantly heard his body ask as Joey searched frantically and squinted emphatically.

“Pretty easy,” Seto- _Seth_ smiled, they’d been talking for long enough that the older man had his coffee in hand and was out of reasons to talk to the younger other than a genuine curiosity about the other’s life, “I get my results in two weeks.”

Joey’s body smiled at the reserved but proud brunet, “you’ll tell me how you did then, won’t you?” Seth nodded, “How are the boys? Mokes, Val, Raf and that new one, er, Aster?”

Seth chuckled and leaned onto the counter conversationally.

“Alister,” he corrected, “is doing better. He’s not handling his brother’s death very well but he’s adjusting and the guys are starting to warm up to him.” Seth’s head tilted and his small smile ticked up a few notches. “You know Mokuba can befriend _anyone,_ but Alister and Valon have some version of getting along going on too. And he and Rafael spend almost every spare moment with each other,” the young barista shrugged, “They don’t _talk_ but they look content together.”

Joey only barely paid attention to the conversation as he stared intently at the distinct reflection of Seto Kaiba in his body’s eyes. He studied the reflection curiously and, he might have been wrong but, Seto Kaiba’s reflection seemed to be looking around frantically and stepping back. Kiss him if he’s wrong but the panicked Seto Kaiba reflected in his brown irises also seemed significantly older than the university student being spoken to.

He moved as close to the surface of his reflective plane as he could and put his palms against it. Experimentally, he whispered.

“Kaiba.”

He bit his lip when this was met with nothing but an increasingly paranoid Kaiba. He bit his lip and tried again.

“Kaiba?”

He got a blink and a stiffness to the other reflection’s features that seemed to indicate that he’d heard something.

_Why doesn’ he look forward? If he jus’ looks up he’ll see me._

“Kaiba,” He stated firmly and the frown on the brunet’s face deepened.

He’d had it.

“Kaiba! Look up ya bastard! _Kaiba!_ ”

Startled, Seto Kaiba finally looked up and spied the relieved blond who then found a way to move even closer to the edge of his reflective surface and reach toward the brunet, “Kaiba,” he breathed desperately, this could be his saviour.

The brunet rushed forward-

“Bye Seth.”

“See you, Jo.”

With one final sweet smile at each other they turned in opposite directions and Joey was swallowed into dark shadow until he abruptly appeared in the shop window again. He whirled around to catch a glimpse of the café’s interior but was dragged with his body toward the next reflective surface they passed and dropped his arms in despair.

He bitterly watched his body grin into his coffee cup as he practically skipped along the rest of his path to his workplace. He would normally have felt a fair amount of curiosity for where he worked in this universe but finding out that he could “fall prey to…” whatever! And that he’d been a coma for a week and that he was losing himself, his very identity, to this inter-reality trip was really putting a damper on things.

And, yeah, the weird hallucination he’d had about Kaiba being a reflection like him, actually coming to _save_ _him_ , was also pretty rattling.

He ran a hand through his hair and wondered if anyone could see when he did something different to his body. He looked down at his comfortable jeans and t-shirt, giving his body’s coat and trousers a sideways glance immediately afterward, and came to the conclusion that his out of place fretting was hidden to the general public for the moment.

Come to think of it, the Kaiba hallucination had been wearing a blue polo neck with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and white chinos; nothing at all like the collared shirt and apron Seth had donned.

He sighed as he tried to recall his first reality, the one he’d left initially, ground zero. He wasn’t trying to remember how the trip started; just who he was before he left. He sagged and forced back tears when he realised he couldn’t remember earlier than the incubus reality. He couldn’t remember anything before that kiss, that _dream_.

He shuddered as he tried to block the sounds from his brain. Why was _that_ so vivid?

He massaged his scalp as he tried to figure out what to do next. Red-Eyes said that they were trying to wake him up didn’t he? And that all they needed was for him to contact them? And ‘them’ meant his friends, right? And he’d done his part the last time he was in the interdimensional desert hadn’t he?

Then wasn’t he saved?

Maybe the Seto Kaiba he’d seen in his body’s eyes was _his_ Seto Kaiba. The one he _didn’t_ violently molest, the one who _hadn’t_ attended his sister’s wedding because she was still in _high_ _school;_ and the one who didn’t have Mokuba as a _child_ but as a brother and who wasn’t _dead_.

Especially that last part.

He didn’t think it would be very helpful if he were.

That settled it. If Seto was his rescue party, for real, then he had to find him and… He didn’t know what to do from there but Seto- he meant Kaiba, was the rescue party and he had the plan, didn’t he?

Joey looked up to assess his surroundings and realised that, while he’d been pondering, his body had settled himself into work and was knee-deep in… flour?

Joey stared at his surroundings from the only stainless steel surface not covered in spices, flour or oil and realised that in this reality he was a chef. Granted, he was the reflection of a chef but he was allowed to be proud, nevertheless.

Curiosity distracted him for a while before he remembered the mission at hand and decided to find a way to move away from his physical counterpart. He followed his busy body around the kitchen for an hour, thinking, and getting distracted, of how the world of reflection worked.

He paused. A thought trotted into his mind and stopped in its tracks. He glanced behind him and pursed his lips ponderously. Keeping his eyes fixed on his body so he wouldn’t lose it as he moved, he walked backwards slowly, torturous step by torturous step into the curious cloudy darkness, the tendrils tickling him in welcome, until he slammed his waist into something.

He recoiled from the offending object and rounded on it with a consoling hand on the tail end of his spine. His eyes popped from his skull when he realised what he’d bumped into.

It was a counter.

He glanced around in wonder at the banquet of cooks in the kitchen, all of which paid him no attention as he stared around himself like a child on a snow day. He would find it strange that he could do this unnoticed if he didn’t theorise that he was a reflection and most reflections probably stayed close to their bodies like he’d done when he first arrived. That was why he could always see shadowy forms in the clouds but not distinct people; because every reflection spent their time in the cloudy darkness to be in close proximity to their bodies.

Not realising how much he’d stopped sounding like himself, Joey grinned at himself and jogged out of his restaurant enthusiastically.

Too elated at his newfound freedom to think of the consequences of leaving this world’s body behind, he wasn’t around to notice the cooks in his workplace whispering about how their boss suddenly had no reflection as he made his rounds.

He burst out of the front door with a sigh of victory and took three strides before he realised that he hadn’t been paying enough attention while his body was walking to map the route back to the café.

Joey swore and kicked a stray stone into the empty street; he took a moment to frown at the anomaly of a quiet street before turning and soundly thumping his forehead against the door that he had just flung open like a prisoner freed from jail.

He sighed against the wood and hung his head back, staring at the sky, deliberately searching for the sun so he could punish himself. His eyes found it in seconds and he glared at it as heatedly as it stared down at the earth.

Wait a minute.

He remembered the sun that morning; it was directly in front of him as he’d walked. He’d been walking parallel to the sun’s trajectory, which meant, if he was tracing it correctly, that he could find his way back if he just positioned the direction the coffee shop was in relation to where he was and where he remembered being.

He thought the directions over three times before he was sure which way to turn.

Every other glance produced a person while he walked. He found that if he looked up and waited long enough the people in the street would slowly fade in and he’s be able to see the silent bustle. If he stood still for too long, though, he’d feel the tendrils attempt to pull him back through the cloud. Moving quickly to avoid this consequence got him lost. Two or three times. But the general direction was right in the end and he celebrated fervently when he read the sign, smiled broadly at the logo and smelled the familiar scent of coffee. He took a deep breath and exhaled proudly.

“Who said geography was my worst subject?” he asked himself as he confidently pushed open the door, “Well, everyone. Includin’ me. But that’s irrelevant ‘cause it worked!”

He spied Seth in front of a coffee machine and strolled up to him.

“How’s it goin’ moneybags?” he said from behind the colourising brunet, hoping to elicit an embarrassing jump or yelp from the stoic man. When all he got was ignored he huffed and began to get irate.

“Oi! Aren’t ya s’pose’ ta be helpin’ me out here?” he growled at the ignorant barista.

He frowned bemusedly and waved a hand in front of the man’s blue eyes; upon getting no response again he hung his head on the brunet’s shoulder in exhaustion and immediately saw cloudy darkness. He leaped backwards as Seth leaped upwards. The confused barista looked over his shoulder at Joey but couldn’t see him so slowly shook his head and blinked a few times before hesitantly getting back to work.

Joey watched Atem ask what was wrong, somehow understanding without sound to guide him.

He saw Seth shrug it off but a hopeful smile spread across his face.

Joey didn’t know if Seto, the reflection, felt that but he definitely would have seen it. He could contact him this way. But how would he get the message that the way to travel independently was to step back into the darkness?

Joey grimaced in thought and licked his lips, catching the bottom one in his teeth.

He had an epiphany. He would just tell him. If he touched the Seto Kaiba before him the real Seto Kaiba would feel it, or rather, Seth would. He’d tried calling from a distance but that went unheard so, he deduced, he had to be touching the Seto to get through.

He licked his lips again and swallowed before slowly edging toward the bustling brunet.

“Sorry to freak you out, Seth,” he whispered just shy of the boy’s ear and he, unflinchingly, continued about his business. Joey huffed through his nose, having secretly hoped that just being close to the appendage would be enough but, having been proved wrong, steeled himself once more.

He gently descended his hands down the Seto before him, holding his arms to keep them frozen in place so this wasn’t too uncomfortable for both of them.

“Step into the darkness,” he decided to go for something short and sweet so the message stuck.

He gently released his Seto and stepped back. The boy had frozen in front of the coffee machine and muttered the words Joey had told him back to himself. He asked himself what that meant. Atem took notice again and asked if the other was sure he was fine and Seth took a breath to reply but that was abruptly cut off by the Seto before him whirling around and shouting. With relief, Joey thought, but it sounded similar to fury so he wasn’t sure.

“Wheeler!”

Joey’s chest swelled with the most exhilarating sensation of freedom and a grin cleanly cleaved through his face.

“Se-!”

Joey hit the blood-coloured desert sand running.

He didn’t know why he was running, only that he needed to move, he couldn’t lose momentum; or they would catch him.

Panting in exertion he glanced around at the dark shapes in the desert, seeking, searching, locating a form like him. A human. A man. _Seto_.

If he’d really come after him; if he was real and was his rescue team then he would _have_ to come through here in between dimensions. Joey found nothing but blood sand and charcoal rocks and clutched his head, hope leaving him on an infuriated cry that ended with a soft sob into the hilts of his palms.

He wiped at an eye and ran a hand through his blond locks. He set his jaw and leaned forward.

If he was going to spend the rest of his existence running he was going to damn well get away.


	15. Hi, My Name is

He choked into wakefulness to meet a pearl blade at his throat.

When he saw who was behind the glimmering sword he grinned and mustered a chuckle at the fierce expression on the familiar bloodied man’s stern and haughty face. He glanced to his left and saw a verdant tapestry hung upon an onyx wall, some flickering torches, and half the remains of a cleaved desk.

His eyes shifted to the right and caught the light of the departing star of their solar system. The fading blaze of the sun focused through the glassless window and painted the pair in shades of fire and blood.

Joey blinked around at the rest of the circular room and noted how empty and old it looked, barren and bacheloresque. Made of cobblestone like some mythically old castle. He couldn’t recognise this place but he knew it wasn’t home. And he figured he would probably never get there. Maybe he was too far gone? Maybe he hadn’t run fast enough? Maybe he was already caught?

Maybe this was simply hell. And he was being forced into facing his worst enemy and, somehow, his greatest love; through time after time. Maybe his hope was his torture. His optimistic reliance on a man who hated him. The image of him looking down on him in that familiar, derisive way.

It was almost enough to make him laugh.

Seto Kaiba; _his_ Seto Kaiba _._ Become Joey’s saviour?

He really had lost himself in all these universes. He needed to remember. The more he let these other versions of himself influence his feelings, the more he lost touch with reality. It was time for him to give up hope.

He raised his eyes to meet the only shade of blue in sight and let a tear escape.

“I don’t believe you’re coming,” he whispered through a mouth wet with blood and saliva, “not to save _me_.”

The brunet frowned momentarily before scowling viciously. He gracefully swung his sword back to strike the kneeling man before him.

Joey was proud of his last words as he embraced the relief of giving up hope, became erased and assimilated to the identity of Sir Joseph Howler.

The creamy blade flashed with an undulating rainbow as the supposed hero swung it firmly into a wall, stone crumbling like so much dirt in a tunnel.

Joseph was not impressed.

Such a sadistic saviour his oppressed people had chosen. More concerned with seeing his target cowering than fulfilling his mission. It was quite obvious that they were hard-pressed for the valiant and kind these days. He wouldn’t be surprised if the well-kept brunet was being offered a great reward for his trouble. Something like the remaining livelihood the people had, whatever was left now that the beast king had took his unfair share.

He felt laughter swell up in his chest and didn’t stop it from forming a dangerous grin on his face as he stared up at the hesitating mercenary.

What cold blue eyes and deceivingly lean form. His was definitely more assassin’s garb than knight’s armour and his muscles stood out firmly against the skin-tight material wrapped like gauze over unblemished skin. Joseph’s face shifted in appreciation. However unsuited the brunet was to this quest, he was certainly good at his job; not a scar on him.

“Of course I’m not here to save you,” the sudden speech startled him and his eyes narrowed in confusion at the outburst. Save him?

“I have been tasked with dethroning you, cur, and I have done so,” the warrior’s lip curled in a mean smirk, “I overestimated you. Now, victory is mine and far too quickly; I almost regret bothering with the challenge,” he gloated, his weapon casually swinging.

He pulled his sword back for the final strike, stretched to his folded arm’s limits and, with a near soundless exhale, thrust the rainbow-riddled blade at Joseph’s neck.

Joseph didn’t have time to smile as he instinctually batted the weapon away with a grinding of claws against pearl. He, in fact, frowned as the warrior’s only defence was flung so forcefully back he heard a crack and a cry. He grimaced in regret as his thick nails pierced the man’s far too flimsy armour and his fingers became the golden stems to crimson buds blossoming on the gasping man’s chest.

The warrior coughed so violently his head knocked against the stone floor and he dazed himself, a trail of red slipping out of the corner of his mouth.

And he’d been so careful about blemishing the perfect fighter.

He apologetically withdrew each one of his claws and was about to step away from the slowly dying man when his ears perked at the sound of bones clacking together. His eyes darted to the twisted right wrist of the warrior as the brunet unconsciously curled his hand in on itself and watched, awed, as the light bruising, only just darkening, began to fade and in the blink of an eye (a blink that he did not take of course; he didn’t want to miss a thing) the bone was completely healed and the hand came crashing into the side of his face.

He dodged to the side as the fist approached and heard it thump the floor beside him. He chuckled breathily as he whirled around, his eyes immediately focused on the burgundy blossoms he’d left on the man’s chest. He couldn’t be sure, he had to be certain; he launched himself at the rising brunet and swiped. A rip screeched through the air and the warrior stumbled back from the blow.

A demented chuckle filled the inexplicable silence and Joseph jumped in delight; his fist thumping the air in a gesture of victory. The brunet simply frowned apprehensively at him, eyeing the pearl blade on the stone floor to his right.

His view of the artefact was quickly obscured by the well-dressed werebeast’s sudden appearance. He reared back in shock but the beast caught him by the hand that had just healed and hauled him into steady standing. A halo of dusk sunlight made the overgrown dog’s figure regal before the once-man shifted.

“What?” the warrior began to say as he noted the beast’s fluffy, golden ears and lengthened jaw. A canine smile leered up at him from what was either a bow or the creature’s natural posture as he could see its back over its head. Its bare chest was carpeted with golden fur and clawed feet poked out from under his loose trousers.

Joseph took in a shaky breath. He’d been expecting this.

“My long-awaited companion,” the werewolf growled.

The brunet forgot to breath. He had not been expecting that.

“ _What?_ ” he said again, rearing back further.

“I’ve been praying to the moon every night since my reign began,” the creature explained in its hideous form, “requesting someone to rule by my side.”

 _“WHAT?”_ the warrior jerked back violently and managed to pull his hand out of the monster’s grip with the pop of a dislocated shoulder. Cracking the joint back into place as he moved, He ran to his weapon and hauled it into position before him; his stance low and ready.

“I would _never_ be your companion. As if I could stand dog-hair all over the furniture,” he spat derisively and noted the beast’s hair stand on end and the smile turn into a snarl, “I thought you curs had better hearing than most but allow me to repeat myself. I have been tasked with _dethroning_ you,” he spoke fiercely and pointedly, “and I will. It has been prophesied.”

The blonde wolf-man howled in laughter as he nonchalantly strolled back to his marred throne and settled into it, his furry head resting on his clawed hand. A bestial rendition of how he had looked when the blue-eyed warrior had first entered the throne room.

“I’ve heard that prophecy,” the beast growled thoughtfully, “touch and gaze as cold as ice, destined to burn the beast’s heart twice,” he dramatically his clawed fingers to his chest and crooned in false agony.

The warrior scowled darkly and walked to stand before the seated creature threateningly. “’Touch like _stone_ and _gaze_ like ice, _designed_ to burn the golden hound’s heart, twice.’,” he corrected.

The hound in question nodded along with the alterations amiably.

“That’s the line that tells me to set you on fire-,”

“ _That’s_ the line that changes the entire interpretation of the prophecy,” the beast-man leaped to his feet energetically, “ ‘touch like stone’?” He swiftly kneeled, batted the pearl weapon out of the warrior’s hand again, gripped the freed appendage and placed his furry, empty palm against the stone floor. “There is truly no difference between your skin and the granite below my palm but have you ever felt,” he smirked mischievously up at the disgusted man, “a lover’s touch?” he lowered his head and gently pressed his lips to the cold palm.

The warrior wrenched his hand away so quickly he pulled the villainous creature with him so they stood chest to chest. The blond wolf-man laughed raucously as he moved his bare palm to the ragged assassin’s lower back and pulled them into a stilted dance; the disgruntled brunet, all the while, glaring vehemently at the monster making a mockery of his mission.

“And your eyes,” the creature continued, “are most certainly the shade of ice,” he placed a gentle clawed finger beneath the frustrated man’s chin, “but that look you’re giving me could freeze the claws off my paws,” he wiggled the appendages to emphasise his point and spun away gracefully when the furious brunet kicked him away.

He faced the bristling brunet, not done making his point. Joseph grimaced at what he was about to do. He was relatively sure his soon-to-be friend would be all right but, just to be safe, he would aim for the left arm.

Taking one quick breath to give himself steel nerves he rushed at the slender man. The warrior, now conditioned to expect strange but basically harmless moves from his opponent, only jerked away slightly while the golden beast surged forward silently, placed a hand on the left side of the man’s chest and the left forearm of his victim with his right hand.

With a wide-eyed glare the brunet attempted to remove himself from the manoeuvre but only succeeded in worsening it as the blond’s attempt to simply tear the arm away partly became the complete removal of the limb and the brunet’s screams of agony rained on every room in the onyx castle.

Joseph winced at the wet rip of flesh from flesh accompanied by a deep, excruciating shriek. He opened his mouth to apologise when the crackle of bone forming brought his attention to the man’s reforming limb. He heard the slipping of muscle wrapping around marrow and scrunch of cells stitching together.

They both watched in horrified rapture as the left arm grew from stump to fingertip, gradually, until it was finished.

The brunet grasped his newly-formed shoulder in wide-eyed confusion and panted as if he’d sprinted across the continent. Joseph noticed that they’d both dropped to their knees, the brunet in exhaustion and he in sympathetic wonderment. He tentatively pawed stone to get closer to the fantastical creature before him.

“You were designed,” he whispered as he gently, tentatively, touched the new limb, “not just for your purpose but literally as well,” he ignored the weak glare he was receiving under dampened hazel hair.

He, instead, met the look with absolute euphoria.

“I have no doubt that one day you will rip my heart out of my chest and set it aflame but, if every other part of that line has two meanings, what’s to stop the last of it?”

The pair spent a long time staring each other down before the brunet whispered his reply.

“I will not be reduced to the master of some slobbering mutt,” Joseph’s eyes narrowed as the warrior lifted his head and his voice, “the kingdom I fight for is one of _peace_ -,”

“LIAR!” Joseph roared into the weakened hero’s face but immediately felt remorse and quickly gripped the hesitant man’s regrown palm, ignoring the tension stiffening the cold warrior’s body.

“Just,” he whined, “just accept that you were prophesied to defeat me because you and I are unique,” he intently locked his eyes on the cold creature’s, “how many of us are there in the world, warrior? How many cursed by the gods?”

On impulse Joseph stood and firmly pulled the creature to his feet before kneeling once more and placing the man’s hand atop his monstrous head; his eyes not parting from the other’s for a single moment. He swallowed his pride but it still took some time before he could announce the deal he was willing to make.

“If you would simply stay by my side, as you are truly meant to… I would have no qualms labelling you as king,” he nearly choked on the words, the idea of being subordinate to the cocky warrior grating on his pride.

The brunet’s eyes widened in surprise and Joseph took the opportunity offered.

“I would let bards sing of how you had tamed me, took me for a pet, anything!”

“But I haven’t-,”

“Just be mine.”

Cold eyes levelled his bright ones.

“You would beg to have me because of some prophecy?”

Joseph had a toothy grin, somewhere between threatening and charming, like a dog attempting a human smile. “You would travel to kill me because of the same prophecy. Look how fate draws us together.”

He rose to his feet quickly, gripping the hand he hadn’t let go of throughout his offer. “Fate has brought me who I need,” his snout hovered close to the cold man’s face and sniffled at him instinctively. The cold man fought a smile.

“And I suppose,” the beast-man’s head tilted curiously, “that I can offer something you need as well. Or you would have killed me by now.”

The warrior gave a shake of his head, mildly entertaining the beast’s assertions. “And if I am simply curious at the insane ramblings of a half-dog?” he smirked. The snout before him puffed annoyed air into his face. He took solace in that they still held the other’s hand. There was more to be had here. More to be done. Joseph had to think like man this time. His beastly nature was why he needed to succeed.

He gently pulled the smirking man after him, through a door behind his throne, into close servant quarters. The man frowned but followed and Joseph smiled. They managed to get to the dining hall before the brunet spoke again.

“What are you doing?”

The blond turned and opened his palm, offering release from his hand. Cold eyes studied him, seemingly unaware of the proffered distance because Joseph could feel cool stone hovering between his warm fingers.

“Getting you a meal you can think the offer over,” Joseph grinned and then disappeared through an adjacent door. In moments he had returned, however, and the brunet raised an eyebrow as the blond blushed.

“Uh, I only eat raw meat but I can try to cook something for you-,”

The warrior waved his hand resignedly, “No need, I only drink,” the golden hound blinked, “and only blood,” the warrior felt quite puzzled at the glow around the vicious wolf-man as he heard this; most people blanched and put further distance between them and him.

“Stop that,” the cold man commanded.

“Stop what?” Joseph’s canines tore through the meat with an echoey tear.

“Looking at me in awe,” the warrior rolled his eyes, “I am no higher being.

Joseph paused his meal long enough to blatantly disregard the other’s words and gaze wondrously at the warrior. “Of course you are no higher being or angel. You’re as cold as death and drink blood like the thirsty drink water.”

The cold man’s stone jaw stiffened.

“What demon were you modelled after?” Joseph went on between the rip of each bite of meat. “Mine is rage. My shadow is,” he gestured to his furry torso, “wolf.”

The cold man found a sense of connection come over him and, in a moment of insanity, softened his face at the hairy creature. The last drops of blood from the small animal he had been draining plipped into his goblet. Discarding the creature left his hand free to raise the goblet but he spent a moment examining his pale hand.

One exhale revealed delicate but sharp nails.

“Bat, I think” he answered simply, picked up the goblet and gulped. His pointed tongue swept desperately at his wet lips. “My shadow is a bat and my demon is hunger.”

Joseph gawped at how subtly monstrous his visiting warrior was becoming in his presence. Elation almost overtook him and he had to fight the urge to tackle and lick his fated partner. Such a controlled man would be able to keep servants endowed and coffers full and Joseph could finally focus on his beast. Let the man die.

The assassin turned dinner guest absently stroked his regrown arm and thought on the prophecy as he sipped. They were both monsters. What better way to eliminate creatures such as them than to set them on each other? Certainly, what stopped the people from hunting him down other than the Beast King being the more immediate threat?

There was awkward tension from the lack of speech for a total of ten seconds before Joseph began to babble like a brook.

The blue-eyed warrior felt caught between smiling at the absurd creature seated across from him and scowling at the endless questions.

“… and she completely forgave him and delivered a riveting speech on forgiveness and the bonds between people,” Joseph rambled on about some human woman, “this, of course, lost its charm over time but-,”

“Wheeler…”

The word startled them both and Jo- Joseph’s heart jumped in his chest but he merely frowned in confusion and smiled awkwardly.

“It’s actually pronounced ‘howler’ but I could have sworn that you already knew that,” he intently studied the brunet’s face, finding a similar puzzlement to his own on the warrior’s features, “but, while we’re on the topic, you did not give me your name when you barged into my throne room and attempted to decapitate me,” he smiled nostalgically.

“It’s _me_ ,” the warrior suddenly looked absolutely sure of himself and a tad frustrated at Joseph.

“I-I know,” Joseph spluttered at the strange behaviour of his guest, “but- your name-,”

“ _Wheeler,”_ the brunet insisted as his blue eyes dissolved into red dust on the desert horizon.

Joey gasped into being and stumbled over his perpetually moving feet. He recovered from nearly falling over and immediately focused inward, trying to remember.

 _“Wheeler,”_ he heaved, _“Jo-Joey, I’m Joey Whee-,”_


	16. If You Thought The Titanic Was Sad

The first sensation he had was that of a hand folded into his palm.

Next, he saw blue eyes, and the first thing he could remember was walking onto the ballroom dancefloor. Her feet followed his with an inaudible clacking, the sound lost under the waves of music and blending with his own footsteps.

Her body swept into his like a diamond-studded wave. Their heights were evenly matched in their heels, his being only a few centimetres shorter than hers, and they leaned their foreheads toward each other as they danced. Her reserved smile was proud and her eyes were focused intensely on him; like they would when the pair talked about business or she was doing something she was good at. His expression flickered as he remembered that his lover was good at a great many things.

He dipped her and watched the few stray locks of deep brown hair her head would allow to stream like waterfalls from her head. Her headdress otherwise undisturbed. He felt himself grow ridiculously giddy at how lovely he thought her to be and grinned to himself. Her body swept itself gracefully back to her feet and securely tucked against him. His favourite smile widened fractionally and he felt as if he was flying; letting his joy control his face.

The couple barely noticed the music fade away as they strolled off the dancefloor and onto a balcony where they only parted gazes to look out over the kingdom and the harbour in the distance. He stared thoughtfully at the ocean and then glanced sideways to see her sharp chin turned up toward the stars.

She rarely wore smiles but he adored the moments when she had utter calm across her face instead. He pressed himself to her side. The white layer of ruffle attached diagonally to the skirt of her powder blue dress wrinkled with the motion and she frowned at him before stepping away to fix it.

He laughed at the effort, “What would my Se’ta be if she were not immaculately dressed?” he asked rhetorically and she smirked at the comment.

Her voice was husky and low for a woman as she replied, “What would Prince Joseph be without his immaculate bride?”

He scowled, “The same common idiot he has been since birth.”

She rolled her eyes at him and pursed her lips, “ _That_ is your father speaking.”

“I know,” he brightened, “he said it just this morning,” she began to laugh, “with the scowl and everything.”

She fell into his arms giggling at his joke and he smiled when she didn’t move away to fix her dress when it wrinkled again. When they did move apart she didn’t let his hand go and he grinned at the gesture before looking out over the kingdom again.

“It is certainly a lovely party,” he wanted to squeeze her affectionately whenever he heard the slight accent she had as a foreigner.

“All hail King Joel,” he commented jovially and she smiled in pride along with him, “Glad I’m not first-born,” he snorted derisively and felt a nudge in his ribs.

“You will still be advising your elder brother during his reign, will you not?”

He shrugged and leaned on the stone balustrade, taking her hand with him. To her credit, she didn’t stumble when she was pulled forward to the undignified position of leaning upon a railing. She glared at him but had to admit that it was a bit relaxing to not maintain her posture for a few seconds and so chose not to complain.

“I’ll let you in on a secret Se’ta,” she almost smiled in anticipation but refused to admit visually that she felt she was floating, “I’m not that good at politics,” her smile arrived, “in fact, Joel is lucky I’m leaving,” she tittered, “I would run this kingdom into the ground,” her giggles escalated in volume and she let him lean on her as he went on, “then everyone would _know_ that you’re in love with an idiot.”

She shook her head at him and looked out at the sea again.

“You are… leaving?” she looked thoughtful and he chewed the inside of his mouth.

He nodded even though she couldn’t see him with her eyes on the sea.

“To visit my sister.”

She nearly gasped but he knew she was above that so she just darted her intense eyes toward him and let her head measuredly follow suit.

“The… one not raised as a princess?”

“That’s the only one I have,” he chuckled.

“… And your father approves of this decision? He will let you see your mother?”

He struggled with what to tell her, “He… is not happy,” he admitted reluctantly, “but what is left for me here-?”

“I am.”

“And can you not leave?” he whirled her around to meet him and pleaded with her cold gaze.

“Come with me?” it came out as a question even though he meant to demand it of her like a man should, “You would love Serenity,” he offered even as he thought that Se’ta would likely find his sister far too cheerful and optimistic, a type of people she despised in every case except his.

He saw himself losing his case like this and quickly switched tactics, “We- I, I won’t just be visiting my mother and sister, dear, I mean to take her on a worldwide trip, we can pick up Mokuba in your homeland,” this offer was successful as he felt the hand inside his grip him like a vice.

He smiled and nodded vigorously, “then it would be the four of us and we can find a distant place to live in peace and,” he was hesitant to complete his sentence, “start a family…”

Her face instantly cooled and he almost hissed at the sudden retraction of contact between them but he was reluctant to give up his love.

“Lis- _listen_ to me Se’ta,” he reached out to gently pull her face to his and put their foreheads together, “if I leave, without you, what will you do?”

She narrowed her eyes at him in frustration and he could immediately see that she was about to lash out at him in cornered fury. She would staunchly claim that there were many eligible bachelors within his kingdom; she could enjoy managing the business enterprises of a wealthy merchant from his bed as she’d done with him at the beginning of their relationship. She would remind him that she had only gone into politics because he, as a prince, had taken an interest in her, her aim had always been business.

He cut her off at the pass, “Would you be _happy_?”

Her lips quivered in frustration.

“Without me, would you be happy?”

“… My life does not revolve around you,” the restraint in her voice made it icy and her tone venomous.

He felt impulse kick in.

“What if I asked it to?” her forehead creased until he got on to one knee, trailing his hand down her arm as he went until he gently held her hand in his.

“Would you spend your life with me, Se’ta?”

Her eyes widened and she took a step back, straining against his hold but he wouldn’t release her. He would never find someone so perfectly engaging, challenging and opposite to him. Life without her would be too easy.

“J- Jo-,”

“Say yes Se’ta,” there, the first thing he had been able to demand of her.

She bit the inside of her lip as she went through her options and reassessed what she wanted. With a huff to blow a stray lock of her out of her face, she nodded.

“I will,” she spoke resolutely and did a rare thing, she grinned.

He knew her cheeks would get tired after a few seconds of this strange phenomenon and so leaped to his feet and kissed her. Within seconds she was shoving him away and he stumbled backward, bumping into the railing and nearly losing his balance.  
“Wh-,” he began but her puzzled expression answered his question.

“I didn’t-,” she stuttered and looked at him apologetically as she surged forward, showing open concern, “Love, are you okay?” she gripped his arm and dragged him to the safety of the middle of the balcony, away from any dangerous drops, “I didn’t-,” she started but he gave a weak grin and gently removed her hand from his arm.

She blinked at the gesture and took a deep breath. He assuaged her fear by squeezing the hand he still held. She lifted her uncertain blue eyes toward him and he knew he had to act quickly, she was about to pull away from him.

“Let’s leave tonight,” he didn’t give her time to reply as he pulled her after him and through the throng of dancing couples and chattering nobles. He heard her snapping protests at him as they ran but she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remove herself from his hold.

He caught sight of his brother near the chamber’s doors and swore under his breath. On impulse he set a course for his elder sibling and paused before him, heart in his throat and blood rushing in his ears.

“I’m sorry brother,” he bowed and ignored Se’ta’s confused glances between the pair of siblings, he rose, “I had no choice,” he pleaded with his brother’s bemused eyes as they quickly became concerned.

“Jo-,”

“I suppose father was right about me.”

Joel jerked in surprise.

“I will not ask for your forgiveness, nor your understanding but I will apologise.”

“Joseph, what-,”

“I am sorry brother,” he called as he snagged his lover’s hand and took off once more, now sprinting through the opening chamber doors.

“ _Joseph!_ ” his brother yelled.

“ _Joseph,”_ Se’ta called in warning as they ran, her hold was becoming more resistant the further they travelled throughout the castle. He swore again as they rounded a corner and didn’t look back. Se’ta swiftly dodged the corner, avoiding injury but fury flared in her voice.

“Joseph!”

“Apologies my love,” he called back at her but went ignored.

“ _What_ is going on?”

They were almost there.

“Why are we running?”

The doors were looming.

 _“What did you do?_ ”

He gasped as they entered the frigid night. He could almost believe his lover had the ability to call forth nature to emphasise her mood. He fought a shiver and glanced back at his furious fiancée. Her eyes were as chilly as the wind and her glare just as piercing as he turned to her and slowly guided her down the castle steps with him.

She took every stride with a punctuated clack.

“Explain yourself.”

He grimaced and pleaded with her to wait, just long enough for them to board the ship. He explained that the crew was leaving that very night and they couldn’t be late because his father might prevent him from leaving if he left any later.

She clearly didn’t like his explanation.

“I don’t like your explanation.”

“I know my love but, please, just trust me. Trust me until the docks?”

Her face twitched in uncertainty and she would wish a mere hour from that minute that she had listened to the insistent voice in her head telling her that her lover was acting suspicious, that nothing good would come of her leaving with him, that the possibility of seeing her little brother again was far too slim for her to take the chance of trusting him.

“Until the docks, Jo,” he startled at the use of the nickname, “but only because I’m in love with an idiot.”

He grinned in that silly, euphoric way of his and pulled her onto his black steed hastily, insisting that they would move faster on one horse. She glanced longingly at her own white mare, Kisara. She whinnied when she saw her rider mount another horse and kicked at the stable door.

Without explanation Se’ta dismounted and hurried over to her mare, ignoring her fiancé’s protests and guiding Kisara out into the open.

“We can race,” she challenged, “hya!”

She heard a delirious laugh under the rumbling clop of the pair of sprinting hooves. The cold wind chilled the further they ran from the castle and closer they got to the docks. The breeze loosened her hair and she scowled at the discomfiting sensation before giving up on maintaining the complex hairstyle.

She aided the wind in undoing her perfectly placed locks and slipped the pins inside her corset as she rode effortlessly. Joseph kept his eyes and love-struck smile on his soon-to-be wife long enough for them to burn.

She chuckled at his discomfort and shook her waist-length hair into the wind.

The docks soon approached and Joseph called to the lazing crew of a nearby ship. Se’ta frowned, weren’t they already setting up to leave?

“Now!” was all Joseph had to yell to throw her world into disorder.

He swiftly dismounted and trotted over to where she was still seated, reaching out to her.

“Come Se’ta,” she looked down at him bemusedly and dismounted herself, far too gradually for her somewhat frantic lover.

“Joseph,” she spoke the warning and watched him nod blankly, ignoring her concern. He pulled her mercilessly after him as they boarded the ship.

“Kisara-,” she called over her shoulder.

“Leave her behind,” Joseph replied, “I’m leaving Akame behind too,” her gaze shifted to the calm but morose steed as he clopped over to her panicking mare, preventing her from galloping after the couple.

“ _Joseph,_ ” she admonished. Even she was getting tired of saying his name over and over again.

He hauled her onto the vessel and the crew pulled the gangway plank up the moment she had steadied herself. Once she looked up she realised why they were in such a hurry. A convoy of royal guards were galloping toward the ship like something was wrong.

She swallowed as she heard the distant, commanding shout.

“Capture the prince!” Joseph’s best friend and commander of the royal guard roared.

She shook her head in denial as their eyes met distantly. They had never liked each other. She thought he was an imbecile and bad influence and he, well, Tristan thought she was a stuck-up icy bitch. Despite their differences Sir Tristan met her tearing eyes with sympathy as he completed his order.

“Bring him to trial for treason!”

 _“No!”_ she shrieked over the edge of the vessel and felt hands on her waist, keeping her steady. Suddenly disgusted by the touch, she whirled around and batted the support away.

“Tell me _now_ Joseph!” she screamed at him, “And tell me the _truth_! _What did you do!”_

Just as stressed, terrified and furious as his lover at this point, Joseph grabbed Se’ta’s smaller wrists in his larger hands and shouted into her face.

“ _I STOLE!”_ Se’ta froze, “I STOLE FROM THE TREASURY!” he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, stop screaming.

“DO YOU REALLY THINK FATHER WOULD LET ME DO THIS?” she flinched and shrank away from him, “THE ONLY REASON HE DIDN’T DISOWN ME WHEN MY MOTHER LEFT WAS BECAUSE THE ENTIRE KINGDOM KNEW ME AT THAT POINT! WELL, NOW I’VE MADE IT EASIER FOR HIM!”

He turned toward the slowly distancing shore with tears in his eyes.

“WHERE IS MY FUCKING THANK YOU FATHER!”

He collapsed against the side of the boat in exhaustion sobbing into the ocean. Se’ta didn’t know what on earth possessed her lover to think that the only option he had was to steal from his kingdom to fund his trip but she didn’t feel a derisive comment on his intelligence would go down well at the moment.

Not that it ever had.

Se’ta mustered all of the compassion in her bones and pulled her lover to his feet, standing him before her and gripping his face in her shaking hands.

“Listen to me Joseph,” he shook his head unseeingly, knowingly, “you have to turn this ship around-,,”

“ _No,”_ his voice was a pathetic whine.

“ _Yes,”_ she insisted and tried to force her lover to look her in the eye, “go back and face this, take your punishment, do _not_ become a criminal. Joseph!” she began to scream, “Joseph, turn this fucking ship _around_! _I love you but I will not become a thief with you!_ ”

“ _NO!”_ Joseph roared, reaching out to trap his lover in his arms. Tired of being restrained Se’ta ducked and scrambled out of the way, running away. She panted, dodging startled sailors and tripping. In the scramble to keep balance she leaned toward the railing. Joseph, following close behind her, attempting to grab her and hold her still, was too aggressive in reaching her and slammed into her unsteady body. She leaned over the railing and flipped into the ocean.

“ _SE’TA!”_ he screamed as his fiancée plummeted into the churning waters and began to splutter and flail uselessly, drowning.

“ _NO!”_ he roared and attempted diving in after her but was hauled back by concerned seamen, desperate to keep at least one half of the royal couple safe.

“Se’ta, Se’ta, Se’ta,” he chanted in time with his thudding heartbeats, the words and the tears and disbelief choking his throat raw. The last thing he let himself see was her searching gaze, he let her meet his eyes as she slipped beneath the waves and he sank to his knees.

He buried his face in his hands and didn’t see the wooden planks of the ship’s floor disintegrate into red sand swirling like tumultuous waves of dust.


	17. Change is Like a River

She opened her eyes again and, when the disaster inside her locker hadn’t disappeared, she felt tears and angry stinging all over her body. Her knuckles whitened on the edge of her locker’s door as she leaned her head into it to hide her sobs. She wrinkled her nose as she got closer to the compartment’s innards.

It even smelled bad.

Josephine Wheeler drew her fingers through her untameable blonde bob. She had to admit that Kaiba was on her game today. Making Josie feel like a poor sack of crap was the perfect hobby for the perfect prissy ice princess of the school. Like almost everything else, she was really good at it.

But goddamn was she beautiful.

Josie heard a sadistic chuckle from behind her and whirled around. The locker was deftly slammed shut behind her as a haughty brunette leaned in close. She smelled really, really, nice. Josie figured it was probably some super fancy perfume. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was the legendary Chanel No.5. The thought was almost enough to make her chuckle despite the situation.

“Missing something, bitch?”

“What’d I do ta ya _this_ time, Setara?” she growled at the taller girl. They were almost nose to nose but the brunette refused to back off just as the blonde refused to back down.

Setara sneered and Josie hoped the blush she could feel coming on would be misconstrued as rage; or embarrassment. She could live with anything but the true reason.

“You’re loud,” Setara’s ~~sexy~~ husky voice scathed, “were you never taught to muzzle it while others are speaking, Wheeler?” she pressed the shorter girl further against her destroyed locker.

“You yapped during my presentation and ruined it!” she hissed at the defensive blonde. Setara finally drew back and folded her arms haughtily over her chest.

“Your stuff’s still fine,” she admitted and the blonde brightened, “I wanted to test your running skills,” the shorter girl winced, “see what there is to brag about and all that.”

The blonde set her jaw in a scowl and clenched her fists. This cocky cu-

“The bell rings in five minutes,” Josie drew a calming breath as she felt a wave of rage coming on. She had her mother’s temper. One of the many reasons her pops left. “I bet your geek squad that you wouldn’t make it to the end of the field and back by the second ring.”

Her heart stopped and she felt the adrenaline rush at hearing that her friends had become involved. She utterly adored the gang, don’t make any mistake, but she knew just as surely that they believed in her too much. She wasn’t nearly as tough as they thought.

She also didn’t hate the girl she called her ultimate rival as much as they had been led to believe.

 _What did you get me into_ this _time Yugi?_

“Whadja bet?” she gritted out.

Setara let a cold smirk creep onto her face, the kind of expression that really did make Josie hate the taller girl sometimes.

“Yugi promised me a duel and a rare card that I’ve been looking for; a Blue Eyes White Dragon.”

She jumped and pressed forward aggressively. Her breasts bounced and she caught the taller girl flinching. She might have even stared for a bit. Josie’s hands formed fists that she raised slightly, “Tha’s Yugi’s granpa’s card, he wouldn’a bet that!”

Setara leaned forward, seeming to relish the way the shorter girl shrunk against her locker, too startled at her proximity to stand her ground.

“Do _you_ want to bet?”

That despicable smirk graced the mean girl’s face again and Josie couldn’t bear to keep having to face the ugly nature of her crush. So, she ran.

Whether it was to keep her denial in place or to protect Yugi’s rash decision didn’t matter. She refused to let herself think about any of it as she bounded across the synthetic floor, barely noticing when it moulded into patchy grass. Her legs soon began to meld away, in her mind, and she began to feel as if she were swooping across the field like a gust of wind.

Her arms, at first clutched to her chest to keep her sizeable breasts in place while she sprinted, slowly relaxed and fell away. She looked down and almost laughed in relief and gratitude. She mentally thanked her secret admirer for the tenth time that week. A smile appeared on her bright face as she recalled finding the perfect bra in her gym locker. It came with the note she now carried between the pages of her English book, the only class she shared with Setara, so she could look at the perfect strands of brown hair and fantasise that the cruel girl liked her back.

_Noticed you had some trouble during gym. You’re very athletic. It’s a shame your beautiful features hold you back. – Secret Admirer_

Her hope had only swelled when she replied, a simple page of note paper with a simple scrawl.

_Thx a bunch but I don’t wann get ur hopes up. I’m kinda gay lol._

The reply put the ‘a’ at the end of Josie’s ‘wann’ and she remembered chuckling fondly. The memory was warm and almost ecstasy when she’d finished the note in its entirety.

_Me too._

She soared, just above the grass; the air raced through her messy bob and made her school jacket flap like wings. Just, maybe, in Josie’s wildest dreams, Setara was her secret admirer. The thought always got her heart thumping.

She imagined riding an enormous, dark, dragon. One with shark-like teeth and a head pointed like an arrow; bright red eyes and a slender build. A dragon made to intimidate all her enemies; a creature that would make even Setara step back and blink her perfect eyes in awe.

The perfect opposite to her precious Blue Eyes.

Then, maybe, the brunette would acknowledge her as an equal.

She skidded to a stop when she caught sight of her books poking outside of a bag that wasn’t hers, it looked expensive, dropped behind a bush. She laughed in relief and scrambled toward it. Upon closer inspection Josie guessed it was probably an old bag Setara was throwing away. Giving herself a second to catch her breath she whirled around and began to sprint back into the school.

There was a scowl on her features this time around. She hated running with baggage.

It didn’t take her long to skid into the hallway adjacent to her English class where she caught sight of a nearby clock and stumbled to a stop. She put her hands on her knees and panted, nearly crouching under the weight of her exhaustion. When she had calmed her breathing enough she looked carefully at the clock face and her mouth dropped in disbelief.

She may have been slow reading analogue but she was almost certain that she had exactly five minutes to get to class, she might even have six. Did Setara lie just to freak her out? She heaved an exasperated sigh and blew an unruly blonde lock away from an eye.

Straightening her back, so she could give the clock a firm sideways glance of confusion. She took a moment to let some of the blood rush from her brain and the roaring in her ears subside enough for her to hear a familiar pair of voices. She frowned and sightlessly gripped at the unfamiliar satchel, her face directed upwards so she could track the source of the conversation better. Her fingers swiped and prodded at the fabric, unable to get a grip on it or grab one of the leather straps so she growled in frustration and looked down at the strange thing.

She kneeled to get a better look at the satchel and noticed four puncture holes on the flap. She ran her fingers over them before zipping its innards closed and securing one of the belts of the flap to the rest of the bag. Finally grabbing hold of the strap she hauled it onto her shoulder and quietly snuck down the hallway, following the strained voice of Setara.

“ _What have I told you,_ ” she spoke venomously and steadily, “ _about ‘standing up’ for me?_ ”

She reached the corner of the hallway and saw Setara and her (grrr) boyfriend. Keith, the typical blond bad boy, was leaning against the wall nonchalantly while his slightly shorter girlfriend stood with her feet an equal width apart, her back as straight as a queen’s and her arms folded. She couldn’t see the furious girl’s face from where she stood (hid) but she could imagine that Setara’s sharp, tan nose was level. Setara would refuse looking up at someone unless they were a giant and she absolutely _had_ to tilt her head to meet their eyes.

“Ya spend every spare moment of ya time bitchin’ about little Josie that I figured you’d be thrilled, honey,” Keith didn’t spare a second to look at Setara, completely focused on his fist, resting against the lockers.

“I don’t need _you_ to fight my battles against Josephine Wheeler, Keith,” Setara sneered, “I refuse to keep covering for your outlandish methods of revenge-,” she began to snarl.

“Then stop.”

“I _have_ to-” she breathed out slowly to calm herself, “If anyone in this school found out that my boyfriend was fighting my battles for me then they would question my reputation. Wheeler would-,”

“Hohoh yeah, of course, _back to Josie_. Afraid to lose face in front of the little bitch?” Keith rounded on Setara, “I suppose you’re scared she’ll tell all her little nerd friends, huh? Including little Yugi, your ‘ _rival’_ ,” Keith sneered derisively, “yeah, the one who’s in gay love with your cousin?” Setara stepped back in surprise.

“Yep,” Keith nodded, “I know all about that. Got my own gang to check the facts,” Josie watched Setara’s fists begin to clench, flawlessly manicured nails contorting into claws of anger, “and you just hate that, don’t you?”

Setara tilted her head, caught off guard, “I don’t know what you-,”

“That gay runs in your family,” Keith nonchalantly dropped the bombshell while closing in on the proud girl. Josie could see the other girl’s face in profile and watched her blanch in horror.

That was a weird thing for Keith to say. Josie thought they were talking about Keith fighting Setara’s battles. Wait. She looked down at the leather satchel resting against her hip. Did that mean that Setara hadn’t been bullying her? Keith had? Was that where the bag came from? Was Setara subtly apologising?

“What’s this, Setara?” Keith shoved something that glinted gold into the brunette’s startled face. The surprise soon turned to rage, however, when she recognised what Keith was waving at her.

“Where did you-!” her furious bark was cut off by Keith’s taunting.

“It’s got your name on it,” he continued in a singsong voice, alternating between examining the little rectangle of metal himself and showing it to Setara, “I think I’ve seen it on your expensive leather school bag Set’,” he punctuated the ‘t’ in the nickname, “where _is_ that bag, Setara? I don’t think I’ve seen it since I told you what I did with that runt you _hate’s,_ stuff this morning.”

“ _Back off_ you _dick_ ,” Setara rasped with utter rage as she swiftly snatched the little plaque with her name on it and subsequently shoved the boy away from her.

“You’d like that wouldn’t ya?” Keith taunted, “a little less dick in your life. A little more,” a nauseating smirk accompanied the gesture he made around his chest, “beautiful features, yeah?”

“Wh-.”

“Took a look through Josie’s English book when we were trashing her stuff. Your handwriting, right?” Setara was backing away. Keith pressed his advantage. “You remember Bones? The smart one? He put enough twos together that I’ve just realised you,” he stepped forward, “ _babe_ ,” he jabbed a finger into her shoulder, “have been _using_ me.” Setara clenched her jaw and steadied herself to stand her ground.

“We’re _done,_ Keith,” she stared him down, “I don’t want to see you near me, my cousin and _any_ of his friends; _especially_ Wheeler-,”

“That sounds like a lot of concern for, what would you call her? Oh yeah, a stray mutt.”

“The _point_ is that I can fight my _own_ battles, Keith,” Setara clenched her fist around the gold plaque and lowered her stance, “would you like a demonstration?”

Keith grinned and made a show out of backing off, “Don’t have to tell me twice, I know how you lesbos can be,” he barely dodged the jab to his face and stumbled backward in surprise before Setara landed him firmly in the solar plexus with the heel of her right white boot.

Josie breathed out and covered her mouth while holding her stomach in sympathy and wished she could go out to help punch Keith in the face but she didn’t want to be caught listening to this conversation. Her eyes widened and she soon gave up on that hope when Keith scrambled back to his feet and fumbled away, running, in her direction.

She panicked. Frozen, Keith came to the edge of the hallway and leaned to avoid her. She crouched to get around his hulking form and darted through the space he made between himself and the wall. She registered the oomph of him colliding with the wall on her left and the startled wide blue of Setara’s eyes locking on hers before she nearly collided with a red boulder in the crimson desert.

She- he swerved to the side just in time and turned his- her head and kept her… his eyes straight ahead.

Wow this was confusing. What _was_ he, she; what were _they_?

They- no, they were a male. He remembered that. He shook his head and kept running, one foot in front of the other. Going to get somewhere, or running from something, He didn’t know anymore. He just had to keep moving.

He heard a shout in the distance, to his left, but he didn’t understand the words and was a little afraid to look.

The green felt spongy beneath his bare feet. The cool air whipped long blonde hair from his flushed face and there were two separate, familiar, weights on his chest that bounced with each racing step and uncomfortably tugged on his skin when they did.

She took a moment to glance down at the feathery green dress that slipped around her legs like spider silk and provided no support for her bosom so that she got so annoyed with the sensation of them bouncing that she held them to her chest to keep them still. Even then she felt a sick jolt with every step and grimaced in frustration.

Where was she going?

Moonlight guided her between the trees to where she knew she would find him. She felt she was getting closer with every springing step in the moss but wasn’t sure where she actually was at any moment. A breeze whispered through the leaves above and around her. It felt intentional and gave her directions.

Suddenly, she jerked back, gripping and hopping onto the nearest tree for stability. Her foot slipped over the moss covered root that served as a makeshift ledge and she gasped, the rushing of water and blood in her ears taking her under, but then felt arms around her, pulling her safely away.

She panted and rested her head in the chest of her saviour for a moment before snapping it back up determinedly and meeting the blushing druid’s face.

“Are you all trying to kill me?” she rasped at the male tree spirit. He blinked at her and abruptly shook his head.

“Then what’s this, huh?” she growled and gestured at the ledge dropping straight down into a thick stream that led to a waterfall about a metre to her left. The shy oak spirit leaned into her ear and whispered in a voice like leaves rustling (that she only semi-admitted to finding sexy enough to send a shiver down her spine and into her lower belly, igniting a few butterflies).

“Are you sure?” she frowned in alarm at the dryad. He let her go and she took a few steps back, hesitated, and then ran and launched herself over the ledge and seemingly into the rushing river. She screamed, involuntarily of course, and splayed herself out to catch the wind.

To her surprise the wind caught her. There were ethereal arms under her legs and at her back, supporting her and carrying her to the opposite bank. She cracked her eyes open as she landed, just quick enough to catch the female wind spirit’s wink as she flittered away.

She looked back to catch a wave from the dryad on the higher shore and smiled up at him. She turned and ran again, feeling much closer than before. In seconds the forest’s whispers of _soon_ turned into _here_ and she followed the echoing stadium of chatter to a small clearing where a man wasted away beneath moonlight.

“ _No!_ ” she shrieked and began to claw her way forward. She heard a few irked hisses from the trees at the rough way she was handling them after all they’d done for her but all they’d done for her would be a useless exercise if she didn’t get to him in time.

The brunet turned fading blue eyes to her desperate cry and wasted energy widening them in surprise. She scrambled to his side and grabbed his wasting hand while his hair greyed poisonously and his cheeks hollowed gradually.

“I’ll save you,” she sobbed determinedly, “don’t worry.”

Tears trickled down her face while she closed her eyes and called on her new magic, conjuring the appropriate chant from the knowledge of the druids around her. She breathed in the power and clutched the thinning appendage between her palms tightly.

“Return your stolen time, from the thief who spelled your days, away, be evergreen once more, let Spring,” the hand between her palms began to tighten in response to her grip, “bring green, your way-,”the hand in her grip batted her away and she opened her eyes in surprise; latching onto the lively blue in the face of the old man who leaned toward him- her, to her and growled one word.

“ _Joey!_ ”

She frowned. A response was in her mouth, about to burst forth from her lungs. She opened her mouth but it wouldn’t come to her, she knew it was this man’s name.

Was she under an enchantment?

She stared intently into the cerulean irises of the dying man before her, turned away, and ran into the red desert-

-he pressed the other body into the orange-tinted green grass with a laugh and watched his beloved grin return in the face of his antics; perfect white teeth glinting richly in the evening sun. That flawless movie star smile.

That wasn’t the only perfect thing on his lover’s face. He started at the creases in each cheek, resulting smile lines that had made their home on the tan skin since their meeting. There was the tan skin itself, slightly paled from years of seclusion but darkening now. There was one blemish, and it was beautiful, a little black dot at the corner of the man’s jawline,

He watched that strong line meet the man’s ear and felt a little ecstatic rush, he even loved that crease where the ear met the jaw and he kissed it affectionately. He heard a chuckle and a ‘stop it’ and looked into too-blue eyes that twinkled, alive with joy.

He leaned forward and rested his rounded nose on the other’s pointed nose and tilted their foreheads against each other so that he could stare into the depths of that glittering ocean. He felt lips on his and his eyes slid closed automatically so he could experience everything that rose to the surface at that one kiss.

He could hear his own heartbeat, felt the heat of the setting sun on his back, the tingle around his waist he felt every time he let himself become aware of the other’s touch. He huffed out a slow breath through his nose and tugged on a lip to open up his lover’s mouth and dart his tongue into the breathy cavern to tap his partner’s tongue hello and seal up the entrance again.

It became hard to continue as his lover smiled and he settled for dainty little pecks across the other’s lips, avoiding contact with teeth.

He heard another chuckle and this time they laughed together and he lifted his head to speak.

“Is it a happy anniversary?” he mumbled and could practically hear the answering grin.

“Ecstatic.”

“Yer goin’ ta have ta dumb it down fer some of us, moneybags,” he grinned as the blue-eyes rolled like marbles.

“Very happy,” he amended, knowing the other understood him perfectly and just wanted him to say it again, like he’d lost a bet and the other wanted to rub his face in it.

“That, we are.”

He dropped his full weight onto the brunet with an ‘oof’ on his partner’s part and glanced to his right, his gaze became fixed there. The orange highlighted the outlines of waves on the distant lake’s rippling surface and he watched the disturbances shimmer like fluid fire.

“You know what,” he whispered, turning his face to the perfect person below him, meeting those blue eyes, intently, feeling the words he was about to say.

“I love you -,”

His face fell, he frowned, he blinked, he took in a shuddering breath, he panicked, he- he didn’t know the name of the face below him. But the feeling; the emotion behind what he’d just said felt like several lifetimes of deep and painful experience. The face beneath him creased and a hand cradled his cheek.

“Joey?” the familiar, gruff rumble rolled over his shivering body.

“Joey,” it felt as if his partner was speaking from behind a glass wall; there was urgency, like he was shouting.

“Joey… look.”

He launched himself to his feet and sprinted away, leaving the perfunctory scene behind like an amber still painting deepening to a cannibalistic carmine, the blood-tinted dust swirling like mini hurricanes around him in a storm of turbulent emotion.

He faltered and fell. His leg slammed against the corner of something and he dropped into a buoyant spread of cushions that served as his seat. He looked up at the back of the man who had supposedly carried his weight and subsequently thrown him mercilessly upon the pile of cushions.

He huffed and crossed his arms angrily for a minute before splaying himself across the multi-coloured mess that could not possibly have belonged to the stoic man who had physically deposited him here. In this house in the middle of the forest. He glanced around the colourful room and figured that the brunet either had a child or kept his childhood playroom. Why he had decided to drop him in this room of all places… well he didn’t really have an answer for that.

A flutter of black crossed the corner of his eye and his gaze shot to the doorway, his heart in his throat at the idea that the impassive man who obviously loved his personal space probably had a vicious hound to protect that. The black blur entered the room and his chest heaved. He cowered on the bed. The man was going to let his dog eat him for trespassing. On the left side of the cushion pile began a slow rise of pitch black spikes.

He blinked at the following curious pair of dark blue irises as the little boy finally rose into view.

Then what he was sitting in was the guy’s son’s room, probably. It _was_ the one closest to the front door, he reasoned.

The tentative child had reached his bruised ankle before he knew it and reached out to prod the joint. He watched the little boy with an amused half-smile as his finger came to a stop above the purpling skin and he, instead, chose to look up at the person attached to the injury.

The enquiry in the little one’s eyes was adorable but he had to shake his head to deny permission to touch the sore spot and beckoned the kid over, instead, a safe distance away from the bruised joint. Once successful, he ruffled the kid’s long, dark mane of untamed hair and grinned into his face. The kid opened his mouth to speak.

“Mokuba,” a stern voice chastened, in a way that felt strangely familiar, and the little boy startled and stepped away.

The man sighed and shook his head, a small apologetic smile graced his aloof face; he clearly hadn’t meant to sound so harsh.

“Try not to bother our guest, Mokie, he’s not feeling very well,” the kid bit his lip and nodded, “and stay away from his ankle.”

Mokuba took a few more steps back to allow the brunet easy access to the aforementioned ankle, “Okay father,” the boy trotted to the arm of the chair where the indisposed blond’s head rested while his father knelt before the man’s injury, gently picked it up, and began to bandage it.

The blond grinned up at the curious face of the boy behind him and then moved his gaze to the careful brunet at his feet. His heart swelled at the treatment he was getting. He felt he should say thank you to the man for taking responsibility for his injury when it was largely the blond’s own fault. He had parted his lips when the brunet locked his icy gaze on him and spoke.

“Look.”

He closed his eyes on the stern father; he opened them on swirling red dust that made him squint and blink until the tuft of brown hair that persistently stuck up on the back of the other boy’s head was annoyingly close to his face.

He crinkled his nose in attempt to get rid of the tickle scattering up its bridge. He frowned, put his left hand to rubbing his irate nose and his equally small right hand to smoothing down the persistent tuft.

“Don’t mess my hair up, runt,” the older boy growled.

“Tell it not to bother my nose then,” the blond boy scowled in reply.

“It wouldn’t be in your way if _someone_ would tie their own _shoelaces_.”

He rolled his eyes and pursed his lips at the kneeling boy, “I _told_ you; this suit’s too tight, I can’t reach my feet like this, I can’t even _bend_ _over_.”

The other boy finished tying the little blond’s shoes with a noticeable tug at the smaller child’s foot and glanced back up at him through slightly too long bangs. The teenager leaned away from the child, brushing the strands across his furrowed brow into his slicked-back hair. He looked the boy before him up and down, eventually nodding in satisfaction.

The blond huffed at a stray strand of hair before his big brown eyes and folded his arms in defiance, knowing that the resulting creases would irk the elder but determined to make a point of showing when ‘fitted’ stopped ‘fitting’.

The older boy sighed and put his hands on the younger’s shoulders, running his hands down the child’s arms to separate the crossed arms as he spoke.

“Hurry up Jo-Jo-” the brunet’s demeanour suddenly unsettled.

His larger hands gripped the forearms of the blond boy and tightened urgently. His face loomed until blue eyes were the total span of the young boy’s vision and a desperate energy immediately sprouted from the teenage boy’s very pores. In a voice all too anguished to be on the topic of simple tardiness he breathed words like a crucial secret.

“ _We don’t have much time_.”


	18. The Look in Your Eyes Has so Familiar a Gleam

The urgent expression on the older boy’s face, the firm hold on his small shoulders, the bedroom behind him, everything, halted for a second. A wave of red sank into the pastel blue tones of the scene and, all of it… morphed.

The bed turned to the doors of bathroom stalls, the grip on his shoulders phased down toward his waist; the sensation was like grains of sand skittering over and under his arms and solidifying into hands at his hips. At the same time the distance between his face and that of the other boy stretched. Neither of them turned their heads, so the once-teenaged brunet was staring fixedly at his waist and he at the annoying tuft.

When the dust settled the red instantly retreated; the last of it dissipating between the tiled walls behind the cream cubicles. He felt a heavy eyebrow rise at the brunet now rising from his waist. With a frown and a huff he reached toward the other man’s lacy corset and fiddled with it. He ran a hand down the blue silk of the rest of the dress and held back from marvelling at how delicate the fabric felt.

Leave it to the brunet to be doing something like this and have his outfit made of the most expensive of materials. Not one to leave these thoughts on his own mind he opened his glossy lips and remarked.

“This is too much,” he groaned at the other while he tugged on the material that, admittedly, felt really good to touch, “ya didn’ have ta make the thing outta cashmere an’ silk.”

The brunet gave a subtle scowl and looked him up and down judgementally before reaching down and yanking at the skirt of the shorter man’s dress pointedly. The blond faltered at the motion and scowled up into the mascara-outlined eyes of the, not only taller but, older man.

“And _that_ is too short. _You_ didn’t have to dress like you’re popping out of a 21 year old’s birthday cake.”

The blond’s face burned at the remark and he placed a conscious hand on the hem of his vibrant skirt. The brunet looked to be fighting a smirk as he turned around to exit the bathroom. With his hand on the door he paused and turned his head. His intense blue eyes met embarrassed brown.

“To your _left_ , Joey.”

The blond frowned and took a surreptitious and millisecond long glance to his left. Finding nothing but stalls in that direction, he deepened the crease in his forehead and took a step toward the anomalous brunet.

The man had turned back, half out the bathroom door. The curious blond stretched out a quick arm to stop him- in surprise, as if he could help this anonymous man keep his life amid the chaos on the battlefield.

The transition between worlds this time had happened while his eyes were open… and he hadn’t seen a thing.

There was no red dust or desert or voices in the distance. He hadn’t blinked, he hadn’t rested, he’d made one move and it was a single action among many. In one gesture he had already run the interdimensional track and come out on the other end into a new world.

This worried him.

Amid a warzone? _That_ was what was worrying him?

His fingers were steeped in blood and his ears were ringing from unheard gunfire.

What did _that_ mean? The man had been gunned down in front of him; he would have to be deaf to not have heard the gunshot. Maybe the shock was getting to him. Now he felt that he _did_ know the man whose stuttering body was cradled in his arms. In a way, he felt they were close.

 _He was anxious…_ because this meant that he couldn’t see the interdimensional gateway as he passed through it.

What was- what did… _that_ have to do with any-?

If he couldn’t feel himself travel through the place in between worlds then that meant he was vulnerable to the creatures there.

He unconsciously hugged the trembling body close to his chest and began to silently cry while the other half of his mind rambled on nonsensically. He really hoped this war wasn’t driving him insane.

Someone told him, yes, that he… would fall prey to them if he –

What?

What did he have to do?

He searched his mind and his memories but he could only remember a voice. It was a voice he’d heard so often he would have to have literal brain surgery to remove the echo, he groused silently. Putting his resentment toward the voice aside for a second, he recalled a few words, some concepts; something about friendship. It wasn’t helping. He couldn’t remember, it was no good. He could tell he was missing information that he should have but he couldn’t recall much more than the fact that he’d had a vital conversation and he should be doing something.

“J-J- Jo-,” the dying man spluttered in his arms. He turned his attention back to the blood and the blue eyes that were jogging his memory.

“S-speak ta me Set,” the soldier’s body said without his permission. He felt like a spectator before he was abruptly sucked back into the action.

His name was Jordan Wilder. He was cannon fodder for a war he decided to fight to get off the streets. Seton was a middle-class medic who shouldn’t have died. He should have died instead. He’s the soldier, it was his job to protect. Why didn’t he protect Seto?

Seto?

His confusion was interrupted by Seton attempting to speak to him again.

“I- I need you… to … look, Jo-,” his eyes were starting to drift closed and the blood-caked blond immediately surveyed his surroundings intently finding nothing more than his comrades dying and chaos continuing to rage. He had the intense, instinctual urge to run and a second urge to pick up his gun, aim and sink a bullet into any worthy target he could find. Like he used to do in training. He was good with a gun. It would be a terrible waste not to use that aptitude in a situation like this.

But nameless blood was soaking onto his skin and weighing him down. So many people had died near him that he, honestly, wanted Seton’s to be the last blood on his hands.

“What am I looking for Seton?” he asked when he couldn’t find anything unusual about his surroundings.

“N-no…”

The blond bowed his head over the dying brunet as his croaking turned to a whisper.

“Look.”

Something slammed into his back and he felt his body go numb. The edges of his vision went black and he slumped forward, descending on Seton’s body.

Just before he slipped into darkness he felt the impact of brick wall at his back and tasted the humidity before rain as the positions were reversed and a blue-eyed brunet sensually licked his pale lips as he slowly descended on the trapped man’s neck.

Their gazes met briefly.

In this tense moment he saw soulless hunger in irises so blue the brunet appeared almost blind. Joey blinked and the blue had darkened, crystallised, and they were icier than the night air as the man whispered to him, his voice muffled by ivory eye-teeth.

“ _Look._ ”

The vampire grinned so wide the corners of his mouth touched his ears and a full row of sharp teeth refracted cold moonlight at him as he dejectedly acquiesced to the demon’s request and exposed his neck. The creature struck with unnatural quickness-

And suddenly Joey’s hands were on rich, brown fur and his chocolate lab growled playfully at him as he finally wrangled the creature into an orange harness. His furry companion’s claws tap danced on the wooden floors as he attempted to drag his owner down for revenge. Joey laughed and let himself be defeated, the large, haughty beast putting his full weight on the blond man’s chest.

“Look at you Seth,” he part-wheezed and lifted his arms to hug the large dog to his chest.

“Hey, I know orange isn’t ya favourite colour but I wasn’ thinking about yer preferences when I bought it, okay? An’ I’m sorry,” he ruffled the dog’s head and looked into his blue eyes.

“But you promised ya’d help Serenity get used ta dis bein’,” he swallowed and sighed, “blind thing until I can afford a real guide dog fer her.”

In seconds he was holding a naked man to his chest who growled quite convincingly at him.

“Remember,” even his voice was a constant growling rumble, “I am not your pet,” he snapped.

Joey smirked, “Yeah, I know, last I heard, ownership of a human bein’ is either illegal or called parenthood.”

His dog-morphing friend continued to be unamused and lifted himself off his human ‘owner’ roughly. He stepped away and growled again, something in his eyes changing as he began to sprout fur and stretch his bones.

“Look, damn it!”

He swivelled around, fur racing across his bare body in rippling waves as he about-faced. Then there was an abrupt flash of red and he was continuing his turn. His brown fur became black and hardened into a stiff suit jacket, Kevlar laced clothing snapped into place as Seth the canine became Seto the bodyguard.

Joey felt the floor skitter away from his back and still air surrounded his head as Seto was gripped and held back by two other guys in the same uniform as he.

“ _On your left, you stupid mutt!”_

The blond could barely take a breath in shock before Seto had broken through and was launching toward him-

Straddling him with warm… bare… thighs. He gulped as a sudden flood of memories invaded his head with the confusing sensation of being foreign yet familiar.

He imagined the man seductively smiling down at him sneering, scowling, smiling, laughing. He saw blue eyes dead, alive, twinkling, cold, soft, passionate. When the man above him spoke his voice was overlaid with hypnotic layers of words and the tones of friend, rival, enemy, lover, employee and acquaintance.

_‘Are you implying that I am whipped, Mr Wheeler?’_

_‘I am your secretary, not your **servant** , Mister Wheeler…’_

_‘Joey? Would you like me to walk you back home?’_

_‘KaibaCorp is entering a new era; an era of invention-.’_

His ears caught screaming as the bedroom poured into different settings; an office, a teenager’s room, a doorway, a car.

_‘I considered waking you but, you know what they say, “let sleeping dogs lie”.’_

_‘It’s Wheeler’s fault Serenity died and his fault that he’s in a coma. He’s the reason their daughter is in critical condition and that there’s no other family to take care of her **if** she survives.’_

_‘The **one** time I lend you my partner, Tristan-.’_

_‘Wheeler!’_

The room had melted into a red desert, he could see the sky behind Seto’s head except it wasn’t the sky; it was a continuous sandstorm and a dark rainbow of dust particles buzzed distantly above. All that was left of his previous world was his body, Seto and the bed they were embracing on.

Seto seemed unaware of the change, though and slipped a dagger from the robe that Joey could distinctly remember giving the brunet earlier. Mixed with his confusion about this was a slow awareness of an identity separate to the man on the bed under yet another, deadly, man.

A college student only recently grown out of duel monsters emerged beneath the oppressive voices of twenty other people by the same name in his head.

This Joey surfaced just in time to see ‘his’ lover’s cold eyes turn to tears and then burn with frustration and desperation as several Setos condensed into the assassin above the blond and the brunet was finally able to yell down at him, just before piercing his throat.

“Joey! We don’t have time for this! Look to your left!”

Joey flinched to the left as cold fire raced across his throat and liquid flooded his airway, he tried to cough but he couldn’t take a breath and he was choking, his vision already going dark and the warm wetness under the hand he’d raised to stifle the blood flow was already cooling. That, or his hand was going numb. He couldn’t tell, but he couldn’t move and the weight on his waist was no longer comforting.

Joey gasped and gripped his throat the moment the darkness cleared. Finding the skin stretched over his pulsing neck dry, if a bit flaky, he moved his head frantically in an attempt to orient himself. He looked up and saw the whirlwind of sand that served as a kind of sky for this in-between dimension.

He looked down and found his legs taking bounds and leaps without his instruction. He tried to tell his legs to stop but they just ached more and ran on. He finally looked to his left and saw, through a screen of blistering sand particles, Seto Kaiba, _his_ Seto Kaiba (he claimed tentatively). The brunet was running alongside him on the other side of the screen in his white suit with the small smile Joey had become strangely accustomed to through many iterations of the man’s character. The man had a relieved, exhausted expression that just made it that much stranger when Joey noticed a spark of light at the corner of Seto’s eye.

His smile faded to a frown as he watched the drop of light slip from its clinging hold on Seto’s lashes and fly backward. As his head turned to follow he noticed many more sparks like it trailing behind the brunet and, with quickly approaching horror, directed his gaze to his own back. A colony of light was fizzing across his back and leaving in droves. As he watched them leave he grew more and more fatigued.

“Seto…” he managed to breathe, “You did… come for me.”

Joey’s consciousness fell into the fizzing light.


	19. Strobe Lights and Sand Dunes

A car’s headlights blinded him as it zoomed past.

Joel blinked drowsiness out of his eyes and gazed around blearily at the innards of a pristine auto-mobile. He took a shaky breath and rubbed at his throat, feeling, for some reason, that it was raw. He swallowed and slowly re-positioned himself in the driver’s seat, his limbs lifting as he yawned.

The driver’s door opening in the middle of his stretch startled him but the heavenly aroma of coffee drooped his eyelids in pleasure and he smiled vaguely at the man entering the car. The brunet settled in next to him, absentmindedly handing the paper cup over.

“Already asleep, Wilder?” Seto Suzuki gave him a quick and easy smile wide enough to make some part of him uncomfortable. He shook the feeling off, he got smiles like this all the time from his colleague, the man was an easy-going guy; there was no need to freak out.

Joel rolled his shoulders and inhaled his first sip of coffee.

“This isn’t even a stake-out, we’ve been here for barely ten minutes,” Seto sat back in his seat and took his own sip of coffee.

“You in a hurry to go clubbing, Suzuki?” he spoke to his coffee with a sideways glance at his colleague who grumbled at his remark.

“Not really,” the irate man replied, “partly because it’s my first time in the field, partly because it’s a club,” here Suzuki rolled his eyes toward his smirking colleague, “and partly because some _clever_ jackass decided to let my facebook page know I was _gay_ when the mark would obviously have had a background check done on me before our business tonight.”

“Hey,” Joel barely held back laughter, “it’s no good lying to the world,” he began to snap his fingers rhythmically, his cup jittering on his lap with the matching movement of his shoulders, “ _you gotta be truuue to yourself._ ”

Seto chuckled as he rolled his eyes.

“You and that damn song.”

“Oi, that’s my jam you’re talking about,” he picked up his half-drained cup again, “and don’t knock a song with a message, they’re as rare as blue moons these days.”

He downed the rest of his coffee as a voice cut into the speaker in his ear.

“ ** _Wolf?”_**

“Right here, Game Master, is Trigger Happy ready for us?”

**_“You guys are fashionably late enough. Send Brand Name ahead.”_ **

“Gotcha,” Joel turned to Seto and gave the paling man a jovial shoulder-slap, “your first mission is ready for take-off, Suzuki.”

The brunet swallowed and plucked at his skin-tight t-shirt; the white contrasted against his black suspenders but matched his loosened ice-blue tie. Joel let his eyes travel for a few seconds, noting that ‘slacks’ probably shouldn’t be so tight and, in that case, Seto’s pants were quite the misnomer, but he blinked himself back to attention and watched the brunet’s face.

“You insisted on doing this, Brand Name, if the tech lab’s calling you back…”

Seto shook his head slowly and swallowed. He sat for a moment, clearly on the brink of saying something, but abruptly opened the door and stepped out of the car. The snap of the door shutting was firm and Joel nodded as he leaned his head against the seat again.

“That’s Suzuki all right,” his gaze went hazy and his heart started to pound, just beyond his drooping eyelids was a sea of swirling red sand and fading sparks of light. He gasped back into consciousness and looked around the car again, a part of him wondering what had happened and another suddenly desperate to get back to Suzuki and talk to him.

“That may be Suzuki,” he said to himself as he climbed out of the car, “but it’s not my Seto.”

He took off at a forced casual pace around the corner and toward the club, “Where _is_ he?”

A flirtatious smile at the bouncer got him noted as queer so it wouldn’t look too odd if he got on Seto’s back during the night. First rule of going undercover was to always be in character. He made a beeline for the bar partly because it was part of his persona and partly because, as Yugi liked to say, ‘he had a problem’.

Four shots later and with a warm buzz in his chest he spotted Seto at the bar himself ordering what he deduced was vodka and decided it was time to check on their status.

“Hey there, tall, dark and handsome,” he grinned as he watched the skin up his temporary partner’s back crawl at actually being hit on for what he guessed was the first time in the guy’s life, “can I buy you another drink?”

He had to hand it to Suzuki, the guy recovered fast. Or, at least, Joel thought he did. And yet the person he could see in the taller man’s eyes when he turned around was too different to the Suzuki he knew to be an act. There was some kind of intense relief at seeing the blond that was too over the top for this situation.

He tried not to narrow his eyes in concern and slipped an arm around Suzuki’s waist. Close enough not to be overheard; “or should we go somewhere to talk?,” he murmured cautiously.

Seto’s blue eyes caught something. He downed his drink and took Joel’s hand.

“Let’s dance instead,” he dragged the blond to the centre of the crowded dance floor and swayed his hips to the beat absentmindedly. Joel searched the club and found a few pairs of eyes on them, made suspicious because he’d spoken to the brunet.

He wanted to kick himself for being premature; or their mark was paranoid. He brought his attention back to Seto and saw the man panicking. He wanted to growl in frustration. Doing something as socially nerve-wracking as dancing would make the newbie prone to error which would not help alleviate doubt.

He licked his lips and pulled Seto close. He had to tilt his head up slightly to whisper in his ear.

“Keep calm and follow my lead,” he nipped the brunet’s ear which made his eyes widen but that would still be relatively in character. Faux club-goer to his right seemed convinced. Their mark was definitely paranoid.

The blond weaved them toward the one dark corner not occupied by security.

He pushed the taller man against the wall and pressed their lips together. His hands drifted from Seto’s chest, lightly over the suspenders to caress the brunet’s cheek in a way that obscured their lips from the rest of the club, his right hand resting between tufts of soft brown locks. He thought about breaking their embrace but had started enjoying himself a bit too much, his heart was racing again and his breath was stuttering in between kisses.

A red desert flashed behind his eyelids when Seto’s arms slipped around his back and pressed the blond up into the embrace.

“Mm,” he murmured at the pressure and felt a warm, wet swipe at his bottom lip that jolted him. He was tempted to return the invitation but before he could get even more lost in their diversion, Seto pulled away and they gasped against each other’s mouths, turning away slightly to get fresh air.

“Focus,” was the first thing Seto said when he got enough air. Joel Wilder blinked up at him in confusion and then cleared his throat to hide his embarrassment at being so unprofessional.

Taking his partner’s instruction to heart, he pulled Seto’s face down to his neck so he could take stock of the eyes on them. His gaze found averted heads and he grinned. Operation: Make the Bouncers Uncomfortable achieved. With less watchmen on them they could get around better. He pulled Seto back up to let him know they were free to move but got caught by his blue eyes. The hair under his palm was soft and wildly ruffled and, actually, pretty sexy.

He gulped. Slowly, he became aware of the teasing presence of a hand. Fingertips caught on his clothing. He felt them drift up to his neck. The brunet moved slowly so Jo wouldn’t be startled. That sensual brush traced fire up his throat until it rested just under his chin.

“Don’t stop focusing on me,” Seto whispered, “it makes it harder to get to you.”

Jo blinked, frowned and tuned into the middle of Seto saying something else.

“… sufficient reason to find a room to be alone in.”

As the taller man smiled and took his hand again, Jo couldn’t tell if he was serious, covering or if this was more of the weird ‘focus’ stuff. He let himself be dragged off into the crowd, keeping eyes open for the regained attention of the guards. The first guard who noticed their escape began sweeping the dance floor. He wanted to signal to Seto but the lab tech was a man on a mission and Jo was firmly dragged up a spiralling staircase.

Near the top, Seto turned around and held both of his hands as he drew him up the staircase. Almost there, those blue eyes came close enough that he thought they were going to kiss again but soft lips passed his face and he tracked their trip to his cheek. Their eyes conversed while Seto’s lips rubbed at his ear.

“Are you thinking about me?”

Stern eyes, a hard-edged smirk and a logo branded trench-coat stamped itself on Jo’s mind and that was when reality went to hell.

Jo blinked, and he was in the eye of a blizzard of red sand. The grains whipped at his face and he closed his eyes against them only to feel pressure on his palms. He opened his eyes again and saw a playful smirk on Seto’s face. The brunet’s complexion danced with alternating flashes of sea-coloured light, completely opposite to what he’d just seen.

He almost relaxed but caught sight of a bouncer weaving through the crowd and remembered they were still in a bit of a tense situation. The couldn’t get caught before they got upstairs to investigate so he hurried a bit; taking the lead and pulling Seto over the threshold of the second floor. Abruptly, a light glared into his eyes and he blinked.

The sand poured over him like sideways rain. It burned but he refused to close his eyes against it again and pressed through the curtain of grains feeling as if he were climbing up the inside of an hourglass. The metaphor was even more emphasised by a glint of something to his left. He turned his head and, there, as if on the other side of a screen of glass, was Seto Kaiba. Not Suzuki. Kaiba.

His eyes widened and he made the mistake of rubbing them in disbelief and his body felt the relief of being pelted by nothing more than air and other, soft, bodies. The dancers passed, or maybe he was passing them, in a haze of mixed smells and effervescent euphoria and Jo hoped he hadn’t been drugged as he was pulled into an open room, pressed onto a soft couch and descended on by the lips of his colleague.

Suzuki pulled back up for air quickly, just as Jo heard someone stop by the door. There was a laugh and a girl’s voice.

“Ew, close the door guys!”

Laughter was in her throat and as the door clicked shut she shouted from the other side, “PDA much?”

Jo snickered but found Seto’s expression gravely serious.

“Focus, Joey,” Seto’s hands were rifling through Jo’s hair and the blue-eyed man’s _body_ was pressing into Jo’s curves and grooves like a corner piece into its puzzle frame but his partner’s expression was anything but seductive. As their lips gravitated towards each other once more Jo thought; if Seto’s expression could even be accurately described Jo would have called it urgent. He would have called it desperate.

“Remember to focus on _me_ and _only_ me and _don’t_ _stop_ _running_!”

Music pounded against Joey’s ears and Seto’s lips were melding with his. He leaned his head back and blinked but nothing changed. Lips and teeth charged down from his neck, stretched the fabric of his clothes to the breaking point, and he really wanted to give in to the pleasure. But he forced another blink. He blinked again and again, fluttering his eyelashes until with a _WHOOM_ sand was rushing past his face and choking his lungs but he was staring straight into _his_ Seto’s blue eyes and he was going to be saved.

He kept his gaze on his left, on Seto in his ridiculous white suit that, he could cry, he was so happy to see. The brunet kept his eyes on the blond as well as they ran parallel to each other, on each side of the wall of glass.

He became more aware of his breathing and his body or, er, spirit while Seto appeared to be attempting to get closer to the glass barrier between them and breach it. Joey realised what he was trying to do and attempted the same, bounding forward and sideways in his next step. He looked up with a grin to show Seto he was learning but was met by a look of terror and a frantic shooing motion. He tilted his head in confusion, spotting a black blur in the corner of his eye approaching like a cannonball.

He ducked and watched it slip effortlessly through the glass wall to pounce on Seto but the agile brunet slipped under it and the creature disappeared beyond him.

“What the-?” he muttered as he kept on running.

His foot snagged and he tripped. There was the weightlessness of falling and then, that weightlessness continued but, somehow, he kept moving forward.

“What…?” he looked down at the dusty ground that threw up sand, as he half-lay on it, but felt like a tuft of air. The floor was an illusion too.

He looked up at the glass barrier and thought that it could be, and probably was, an illusion as well. His eyes never left the deceitful screen that kept him trapped as he slowly got to his feet. He was still staring at it, studying it and trying to get himself to believe that he could pass through it but he felt a mental block. It was an installed aversion like the fabricated fear he’d had of his red-eyes.

His jaw clenched in frustration and then, just beyond his attention but still in his view, Seto’s eyes widened and he pointed frantically ahead. Joey noticed this, tilted his head and then turned to find a massive protrusion of rock racing toward him like a red shark fin in the swirling sea of sand. It took him a single question asked in a single second but his hesitation caused his left shoulder to smack against the rock and the force spun him around like a gunshot would. His scream was lost in the merciless red winds and he landed on his back.

Falling caused him no pain but his shoulder was swarming with sparks of light that took the pain away but also took off into the storm. Joey sat up and clutched at his limb in the hopes that the physical pressure would stay the little flashes of light.

On his back, his attempts failing, he glanced up and saw a horde of large, morphing shadow that had probably been following them the whole time. His eyes widened and darted about as his brain sought to gather all the information it could get. The rolling wall of darkness occasionally split off into shadowy beasts that attempted to beat the rush to get to him.

His breaths came fast and deep, but not deep enough as he soon felt himself panicking. _Why_ was he panicking?

As he stared, the mass released an explosion of dark dust that mingled with the red sand in the air. It seemed to dissipate until he spotted a creature right before his left eye, and then it was gone and he could have sworn that the horde had grown bigger, the lines of the creatures within the mass that much more clearly defined.

He tried to set his trembling jaw and turn his head to the right; to focus on Seto again. His Seto mouthed something while he stared. Joey’s brow furrowed as the brunet repeated his statement. The exasperation was apparent on Seto Kaiba’s face when the blond shook his shaggy head at the former’s third attempt to signal an instruction to him.

Clearly fed up the brunet took one glance at the shadow horde behind the pair, licked his bottom lip and leaped through the glass barrier which broke, contrary to what Joey had expected, like a waterfall submitting to stone. And when the suited man stretched an arm down to grab Joey his hair was matted to his face and his clothes clung to his skin but his touch was dry.

“ _Get_ _up_!”


	20. Leaps

Having finally got his point across; Seto gripped the traumatised blond by the shoulder and squeezed with a vague tug in the upward direction.

Joey obliged with minimal difficulty getting to his feet. Once he had, he continued to face the horde while Seto stood by his right arm and, instead, looked in the direction they were going. Joey looked down to find that they _were_ still moving ahead without having to run and felt an odd twisting in his gut that said that their momentum was going to kill them.

Just as he thought that the curtain of glass-water slipped between them again, pouring over Seto on its way that made him double over in pain.

“Run-,” he’d managed to gasp out before the wall had completely submerged the brunet and pushed him out the other side.

“What?” Joey shouted, “But- da momentum-,” he began but he knew it was no use. If he couldn’t understand Seto through the glass waterfall then the same rules probably applied to the brunet. Besides, he was the rescuer, Joey was just the rescuee. There was definitely something Seto knew that he didn’t in this case. However much it annoyed him.

So he swallowed his objections with a clenched jaw and followed instructions sullenly, turning around and running again. He swiftly dodged another rock formation but tried to keep as close to the transparent barrier as he could.

He could tell that their proximity would get the horde nervous so when Seto’s eyes met his he knew what he had to do to get out. Seto didn’t have the energy to pass through the barrier by himself anymore but Joey couldn’t break the mental block. They would have to meet each other halfway.

Simultaneously, each man’s hand reached toward other and grazed the glass waterfall together. Joey felt like he was touching searing hot water with a repelling force twenty times more powerful than the earth’s gravity but he knew he would have been able to push through if the shadow creature hadn’t bounded between them, savagely attacking Seto’s arm and brushing Joey’s away.

In that moment of connection completed by the horde creature, Joey relived ten memories that were not his. Going from the still frame of a kitten sinking its fresh claws into a snooty businessman’s skin to Joey’s own hands tearing through flesh like so much bloody paper.

Joey came back to see lights instead of blood. He saw the dark beast disappear and leave nothing but a twinkling grin. He saw Seto Kaiba throw back his head, open his mouth wide and scream in agony. But, though he saw no bubbles, the sound was like someone trying to yell underwater; it was like someone drowning.

The force of the creature’s crushed the brunet’s shredded arm into his stomach and he dropped to a knee, cradling the limb buzzing with sparks. Seto gritted his teeth and strained his jaw with the effort it took to stop screaming. Instead, he stood up, let the mauled limb hang limp beside him and gave up on running. The buzzing lights huddling over his arm got swept into the wind and carried to a trio of dark creatures behind the pair of men who appeared to lick the little flashes from the air and give cherry-red grins of satisfaction.

Joey’s eye caught Seto’s head moving to stare forward and he followed the turn with his own head. Before them the horde-creature that had just attacked and seemingly dissipated appeared to have actually moved ahead of them. It paced from side to side of the glass division as if waiting for them. Stalking perpendicular to the current of movement that they were all subject to. Joey watched how the creature easily slipped past the barrier as it moved and pursed his lips in thought.

On the other side of the wall Seto appeared to be talking to himself.

“I’ve played chess before, blue-eyes,” he whispered as his left hand unconsciously went to his right, “and this is a checkmate.”

Joey watched as the brunet appeared to have a conversation with himself. He observed the man listen for a few moments before muttering something else and then noted the smile on Seto’s face as the other tilted his face up to the sky.

Joey, struck by an intuitive and tactful jolt of lightning, lunged toward the wall. Out of the corner of his left eye he saw one of the creatures launch toward him immediately but as he breached the searing glass-waterfall a shower of sparks littered the air like a firework and the scattered food immediately caught the beasts’ attention. They stiffened and rocketed toward the scraps, giving Joey enough time to crash through the water-glass and land on Seto who smiled weakly and took a single step back, pulling Joey along.

The blond felt his hair plastered to his forehead with some magnetic charge because he most certainly did not feel wet. He wrapped his arms around Seto and, along with the force of his tackle, they were able to exit the slipstream and leaped onto a still dune of sand.

Joey gasped in a plea for air, still getting a bearing on the fact that he was free. He rested his forehead on Seto’s heaving chest and became distantly aware of hands on his back. Between deep inhales and exhales Joey came to realise that Seto Kaiba’s scent was familiar. And that it was because, no matter what dimension he’d been in, Seto had always smelled the same.

The idea comforted him a lot more than it would have however long ago it was since he’d started his journey.

Joey slowly came to notice a burning on the inside flesh of his arms and parted from Seto’s embrace slightly to find that there was a thin, glowing blue string about the man’s waist, soft as spider’s silk. It had begun to vein out and wrap around his own arms. The blue strands began to cobweb around his skin and the further it got along his body, the darker the strings became until he had red strands caressing his arms and circling his waist.

Joey looked up into confident, relieved blue eyes uncertainly and felt a pull in the reverse of the direction he’d been running in earlier. He felt like he was going back and being reeled in. the horde-creatures slipped into the stream of movement occasionally but they were either avoided by a sharp snap into another reality or distracted by more of Seto’s light show. Joey soon put an end to the latter practice, it was making the brunet visibly weaker with each performance.

Joey eventually found some semblance of relaxation as they continued their trip and was finally able to breathe easy as they came to the end. He knew they were approaching his home reality when he could hear his friends’ voices. They sounded startled. He wondered if they could somehow sense his arrival.

Indeed they could.

In a guest bedroom, on the second floor of what was colloquially known as the Kaiba mansion; a group of young adults huddled anxiously over a pair of men in their early twenties. Two great, serpentine forms with wings that could pour the estate with shadow if outstretched, protectively stood on either side of the bed, ethereal and a ways behind the concerned gang. Their heads reached above the bed and their foreheads met as they looked down on the unconscious pair they guarded.

In a hiss of relief the dragon beside the left side of the bed, began to flutter its wings ever so slightly in a bout of restlessness.

“They’re coming,” her voice hummed without a mouth to guide the words.

“Really?” Tristan jumped out of his chair.

The gang gathered even closer around the bed.

“They’re almost here,” the darker reptile remarked, his voice overlapping with the thrum of his silvery-blue counterpart.

“Come on, come on,” Yugi whimpered when they still saw nothing.

“Oh my god,” Téa whispered, “guys, look!”

A dim glow was growing beneath each man’s skin. Téa gasped in shock and Tristan gripped the edge of the bed in anticipation.

Like that, the glow intensified and the pair began to stir until, like lightning had struck them both, they jolted up and awake. A communal sigh of relief filled the room. The newly awakened pair had heaving chests but they were alive and well and still vaguely glowing. An occasional disbelieving laugh made its rounds too, as the friends could finally reach out and talk to their Joey again.

Yugi gripped Téa’s hand to his right and they shared a relieved smile. Mai rested a heavy arm over the brunette’s shoulder and relaxed into a small smirk of relief.

At the foot of the bed, before his big brother’s feet, knelt a teenage Mokuba Kaiba; his head buried in the blankets with relief. Beside him, Tristan held back tears and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. Ryou seemed to sink into his own chair beside Tristan’s and closed his eyes. He released a soft breath he’d been holding for, what felt like, days.

The Ishtar siblings took vigil on the left of the bed. Marik, with folded arms, and Ishizu with open concern. She took a single step forward as her business partner awoke and gave a serene smile. Seto Kaiba glanced at her from the corner of his eye and her smile quickly drooping into dismay. Something was wrong.

Jo could tell something was off. The sensation of light falling on his features had become warm, like sunlight, and the background noise his ears had been trying so hard to muffle had changed to a ringing pressure. He was on a soft bed, not a leather couch. Something was wrong. He blinked his eyes open tentatively.

Suzuki ached all over and he was pretty sure it _wasn’t_ from what he and his detective friend were setting up to do. He opened one eye to very bright natural light and held his throbbing head in reaction. In that single blink he saw a blur of woman and young man.

Jo was the first to speak.

“ _Yugi_?” he stared at his boss’s deceptively innocent face, steeped in a confusion that, unfortunately, always got the younger man labelled cute. No matter how old he was. Jo hyper-focused on the familiar face, seeing nothing else around him as he reached out a hand to grip his superior’s arm desperated.

“Where are we?” was his first frantic question. Yugi, taken aback, still reached out to reassure him. “What happened?”

Yugi didn’t know how to answer. Téa had dropped her hand from his in shock and Joey was tugging on him now. “You’re okay,” Yugi insisted with tears in his eyes; saying the only thing he did know. “I know you’re confused right now but we brought you back and you’re okay.”

Jo glared in frustrated silence at his alarmingly young-seeming boss, “That… doesn’t answer my question-.”

“Professor _Ishtar_?” Seto had been focusing on the blur of a woman for some time now. something about her form struck him as familiar. Upon recognition his gaze was suspicious as well as shocked. He put a hand to his throat at how low of a growl his voice was. “Did we get roofied?” he asked himself.

Jo took that moment to survey the rest of the room. He took in Téa with her hands over her mouth and tear streaks down her cheeks. Jo’s eyes widened at another face he recognised. Her eyes were uncertain now. A pretty, blue gaze questioned him when she noticed him looking. His expression immediately grew awkward as his cheeks flamed. He swallowed and looked away. Instinctively he distanced himself from Suzuki and then cleared his throat.

“Ah, Suzuki,” Seto felt a tap on his arm drawing his attention away from his college professor. When Joey caught the brunet’s attention he nodded to the brunette, speaking low, “Ex-fiancée alert.”

“ _Fiancée_!” she repeated before Seto could speak.

“Téa!” Seto’s manner was surprised and sheepish, “I can exp-,” he gasped awkwardly before realising the confusing situation he was in and changing his mind, “Actually, _you_ should be explaining,” his tone swept down into hard concern, “Why are you here? What did you get involved in?”

“I’m not-,” she shook her head in bemusement.

“Mokuba?” Jo cut in, “ _May,_ ” he shook his head in disbelief at Mai whose only indication of confusion was in her bewildered eyes. And then Jo’s gaze found Ryou.

“ _Shit_ , it’s Ryan,” Jo scrambled into a defensive crouch and tugged Suzuki behind him. His partner bounced back onto the bed. “Where the fuck are the cuffs on this guy!”

“ _Barker_?” Seto’s gaze whipped around as he pulled himself up to find the escaped con and met Marik’s raised eyebrows instead.

“M… _Marik?_ ” The brunet’s lips touched and bulged ever so slightly with a word so precious he didn’t want to let it go. But he couldn’t keep his breath in forever and so he sighed the other man’s name like a prayer, his hands compulsively crept across the bed toward the sandy blond’s face.

The intensity in his blue eyes scared him but Marik’s curiosity kept him in place.

“Suzuki…?” Jo glanced between the pair and couldn’t figure out the connection, “Would someone _start_ _explaining_!” he growled in confused frustration.

Seto’s hands had just reached Marik’s face when his consciousness succumbed. His eyes fell closed and his body followed suit, tumbling forward, onto the bed.

“ _Suzuki!_ ” Jo yelled and scrambled to be by his partner’s side. He gently lifted the man’s head and clutched at him protectively.

“ _What did you imposters do to him?_ ” his voice was a loud emotional roar of puzzlement and exasperation and Ishizu was smart enough to back both herself and her brother away, checking on her brother through a sideways glance. He gave her a small nod to let her know he was okay and went back to staring curiously at the unconscious brunet.

On the other side of the room Yugi was frantically scanning the corners of the chamber to find dragons in the shadows but couldn’t see Blue-eyes or Red-eyes anywhere. He fidgeted anxiously in thought and bit his lip.

“ _Answer me!_ ” Jo screamed, his anger aimed at Yugi for some reason. He looked back down on his new partner’s peaceful face, knowing the pulse was there because he’d just checked it but checking it again to be sure. And then he found that the steady beat was comforting and kept his fingers pressed to the man’s wrist.

He blinked away tears when the man stirred. Seto’s eyes fluttered open and a drowsy gaze set on the vibrant blond made his heart leap, until the man spoke.

“Wheeler,” he murmured lowly, “you’re back.”

Jo’s face froze and Seto Kaiba watched, hazily as the blond pulled away from him mentally, drawing the latter out of his daze with every step back.

“Wait,” Seto called a little clearer as he sensed the physical step back approaching.

“What is this fucking sci-fi shit?” he yelled as he pulled away. His hand found his forehead and rubbed vigorously. ” _You_ roofied me,” Jo tried to explain to himself and rationalise the insane environment he’d been plunged into. His hands raised, shaking, to just in front of his face.

“No,” he recanted.

“None of this is real.” He swiped his palms side to side as if he could wipe their images away. A slow nod accompanied his survey of each confused face in the extravagant bedroom, “They roofied me and they’re probably strapping me up to something right now,” the blond stumbled off the bed and away from the crowd of concern, “they’re gonna wake me up to torture me for info in a sec, or-or threaten Suzuki.”

Jo took slow steps back, towards a large window, “This isn’t real,” he murmured.

The window was slightly ajar to let some sweet summer air into the second floor room.

“I have to wake up,” he pressed against the pane of glass as the room grew increasingly apprehensive, “I have to save Suzuki.”

“Wait!” Seto scrambled unsteadily to his feet and raced after the blond, grabbing him and holding him back.

“Joel,” he called, and Jo froze for a moment, “Joel Wild, that’s your name,” Seto consoled, “Look, it’s me, Suzuki.”

He forcibly turned his friend around to look into his eyes. His hands gripped the blond’s head when all the confused man could do was shake it disbelievingly.

“Remember when you started that running joke about code names,” Seto struggled to put a light air into his words and an ever-present hint of a smile on his face. Blue eyes met as sincerely as they could with dazed brown, “and you insisted on Wolf because I kept on calling you a lost puppy and a stray dog who always ended up in my lab because he didn’t have any friends?”

Jo began to nod slowly with brimming tears in his eyes.

“I said,” Jo croaked, “I prefer the term ‘lone wolf’.”

“Yeah,” Seto almost whispered with a small nod, “and Yugi insisted on Game Master and you both agreed on Brand Name for me.”

“Because Suzuki’s that one type of car, right,” the tears never left his eyes as he quoted himself. His voice trembled.

Seto’s hold became gentler as a fond but shaky smile spread across Jo’s face and the blond stretched a hand to the taller man’s head. The tentative fingers stroked soft, brown hair and smooth skin.

“The kiss,” Jo swallowed, “and everything else. It was because I like you Suzuki,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I’m a sucker for nerds.”

Seto almost faltered at the question in the other man’s eyes but took a deep breath and licked his lips.

“Seto Suzuki likes you too, Joel Wild,” he settled on.

Jo nodded and smiled as he drew away slightly.

“Thank you,” they smiled at each other, “for saying what I want to hear,” Seto’s smile began to drop, “but I have to go save the real Suzuki now,” their eyes never left each other’s as Jo fell backward, nudging the window open as he went.

Seto lunged forward but could only grab the man’s leg. He tugged but Jo seemed to be holding onto something and not letting go.

“Don’t do this, Jo!” Seto grunted with the effort of keeping Jo steady. He felt his feet slipping against the floor until there were hands at his waist and arms keeping his shoulders steady. He would have checked to see who these people were but there were swirling identities inside of him, all focused on the blond nearly out of the window.

“You’re going to kill yourself!”

“This isn’t real!” the crazed man roared, fighting against the hold on his leg. “I need to wake up! They’re going to hurt Suzuki!”

“ _I’m_ Suzuki!”

“You’re part of my imagination!” his fingernails scrabbled against the ledge, “you’ll say and do what my subconscious mind wants.”

Seto closed his eyes to focus his memories. _Seto Suzuki, Seto Suzuki_ , he chanted.

“Then how do you explain Mokuba, huh?” Seto’s eye snapped open. “What place does he have in your mind?”

“He’s your new little brother! Of course I’m thinking about how he’s changing you!”

Goddamn that answer came quick. He hadn’t expected that. The tendons in his arms were straining against lifting the other’s man’s weight for so long.

“Fine!” he grunted, “but my favourite professor?”

“You talk about her all the time! Professor Ishtar, this, Professor Ishtar, that! ‘Did I mention what a great Ancient History professor I had in college?’” The poor imitation of how he sounded annoyed him enough to grumble that he should just let the stupid blond go.

Seto squeezed his eyes shut. He was panicking. Seto Suzuki was in his brain yelling desperately. Crying for Joel to stay safe. Begging for him to do something.

“What about Marik?” he called down in a burst of inspiration.

“Who?”

“Exactly!” he yelled in relief, “I never spoke about him! You have no idea who he is to me so why is he here?”

“I- I don’t-,”

“Please, Joel,” Seto let some of Suzuki seep through him. “This is all real. Falling from this height is real! And if you do this, I’ll have lost a… a friend.”

Finally still, Jo said nothing in reply; thinking it through and weighing the risks. If he was really drugged then it would wear off anyway and injuring himself in his dream had a high chance of damaging himself mentally. He swallowed and released the ornate ridge in the wall he’d been holding onto.

Seto tugged and felt Jo come along easily. Almost grinning in relief he dragged the crazy blond back through the window and smiled in thanks at Tristan, Marik and Bakura; the ones who had been close enough to reach him first. Every single one of them looked at him like he’d been possessed.

Once landed and settled back onto the bed, with a cup of coffee Seto ordered and directed the makings of, Jo was informed of whose body he was inhabiting. The group of friends relied heavily on Seto Kaiba for translation between the befuddled dimension-diver and the gang. Seto was aided by his blue-eyes in explaining the area in between realities and the friends greatly enjoyed Jo recounting who they all were in his universe.

“So, why ‘Game Master’?” Yugi questioned after an embarrassing but hilarious story about Tristan being Jo’s childhood friend and first kiss.

Jo smiled.

“You and Suzuki,” Jo glanced toward Kaiba who gave a barely noticeable return smirk, “Had this competitive thing going. Suzuki was a chess champ everywhere he went. From high school to college to casual tournaments, you name it, he won it. But when he came to work for the DAGGOR-,”

“Dagger?” Téa questioned.

“It, uh, stands for…” Jo struggled with his recall, screwing up his face in thought, “Defiant- no, Deviant! Deviant Actors Group for Gathering Outlaws?”

“That’s DAGGO,” Ryou worked out and the group laughed. Jo clenched his jaw and kept quiet, unable to put away how he felt about the man Ryou was to him. Seto’s hand on his shoulder loosened him up.

“Deviant Acts Gathering Group for Outlaw Retrieval,” the brunet recited perfectly.

The gathering oohed and ahhed at his flawless recall and this time the smirk at Jo was smug.

“Yeah yeah, anyway,” Jo waved, “Seto was the undefeated champ until you came along Yug’,”

“Sound familiar?” Tristan interjected with an undisguised gloating look toward the brunet billionaire.

“Ha ha,” Seto replied and felt Jo’s weight under his hand suddenly increase.

“Jo?” his gaze whipped around to face the blond who appeared to be sleeping suddenly. They all held their breath and a few concerned comments were flung around with Téa asking if this should be happening and Tristan wondering if their friend had fallen into another coma. Seto hung over him and asked his blue-eyes but, before she could answer, Joey lurched awake with wide eyes and a loud gasp, as if he’d been drowning.

The group relaxed and Seto subtly let out a breath he’d been holding in.

“Wheeler?” he asked tentatively and Joseph’s darting eyes finally landed on him. Recognition mixed with fear and pain immediately flooded his gaze and he screamed for help while roughly shoving Seto away from him.

“ _You crazy, murderous bitch_!” he snarled wildly.


End file.
